The Final Minute Read online

  Fifty

  St Mary Magdalene parish church was an old stone building set on a quiet back street a hundred metres away from the busy hubbub of the Euston Road, and almost in the shadows of the gleaming office blocks of the brand-new Regents Place development. In her younger years, when she’d been living in and around Camden, Tina had enjoyed going for long walks and exploring the city, which is how she’d come to find this place. It was a peaceful spot with a pretty little sheltered garden that could be reached down a short flight of stone steps.

  The sun was shining and children played in the small park opposite as Tina walked up to the front entrance. Churches in London tended to be locked, even in the day, in order to keep out thieves and the homeless, which seemed to Tina to be a sad indictment of modern society, but the door to St Mary Magdalene opened when she tried it. She was almost certain she hadn’t been followed there, but she took a last look round anyway just to make sure before slipping inside and taking a seat at the end of one of the rows of pews.

  The church was empty and quiet, and Tina immediately felt at peace. It was hard to believe that barely two minutes ago she’d been fighting her way through the armies of commuters swarming along the Euston Road, and it made her wonder why more people didn’t take sanctuary in places like these, where they could escape from the modern world, even if it was for a few minutes, and just … contemplate.

  Tina closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, taking herself back to childhood. Neither of her parents had been religious, but she remembered going to church with her maternal grandma when she’d been a little girl, and her grandma telling her that if she was good, then God would look after her. The vicar at the church had been a kindly old man and Tina had always felt very welcome. It had seemed like a place of pure goodness, and maybe to her it still was.

  Her grandma had been a loving, stable influence in Tina’s life but she’d been gone for close to twenty years now, having passed away when Tina was in her second year of university. Sitting there in the musty cool, she could picture her grandma perfectly, and the image calmed her.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ said Sean Egan as he shuffled along the pew towards her. He was dressed in an ill-fitting grey suit jacket and a peaked cap, with a photo ID tag hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ she asked as he sat down beside her.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘And a good disguise. No one looks at you twice when you’re dressed like this.’

  Tina raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask where he’d got the outfit from. Right now, she didn’t want to know. ‘OK Sean, I spent a long time searching through the list of struck-off therapists looking for candidates for your Dr Bronson, and I’ve narrowed it down to four people. I wasn’t operating from an exhaustive list, though, so he might not be one of them. For all we know he may not even be struck off, but it’s the best I can do. And it’s the last thing I’m doing too. We’re quits after this. I’m not risking my neck for you any more.’

  ‘I understand.’ He pulled the kind of face men pull when they want a woman to sympathize with them, but it didn’t look real. Sean was a manipulator. Tina had come to realize that.

  She produced four folded A4 sheets from inside her jacket and handed them to him.

  He glanced at the first photo and shook his head, placing it at the bottom of the pile.

  As she watched him, Tina realized that she really wanted Bronson’s face to be in there because, with him, another piece of the puzzle fell into place, and she came that bit closer to finding out what had happened to Lauren Donaldson. She was certain the news wasn’t going to be good, but she needed to give Lauren’s father closure.

  ‘That’s him,’ said Sean, pointing at a black and white photo showing an upper body shot of a middle-aged man in a suit, with dark hair and glasses. ‘One hundred per cent. That’s Bronson.’

  Tina had numbered each of the photos. Bronson was number 3. She consulted her notebook. ‘His real name’s Robert Whatret, and he was a well-qualified and highly regarded psychotherapist until he was struck off and imprisoned for sexually assaulting his patients.’

  ‘Have you got an address?’

  This was where it got tricky for Tina. ‘If I give you his address, and then you hurt him and it gets back to me, I’m suddenly in a lot of trouble I don’t need. Like I told you, Sean. I consider us quits now.’

  Sean looked her squarely in the eye. ‘I need your help on this, Tina. Because this guy knows what’s happened to the girl you’re looking for. It may be that he has to put me under to get my memory back, and if he does that, I need you there to make sure he doesn’t implant any other false memories. I can’t do this alone.’

  ‘Jesus, Sean. And how are we going to get him to cooperate? He’s not going to want to talk and I don’t see how we can force him.’ She thought of Dylan Mackay, the young man she’d tortured information out of who’d ended up dead within a day of her visit, and doubtless as a direct result. It made her feel dirty and in no mood to do the same thing again to someone else.

  ‘I haven’t got much time, Tina, and this bastard helped keep me in a near-catatonic state for two months just so he could extract some information, knowing that as soon as he got it, the people he was working for would almost certainly kill me. He’s not a good man.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  Sean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he reached round behind his back and pulled something out from under his jacket.

  As soon as Tina saw it, her breath stopped in her throat. ‘That’s the gun from the hotel room, isn’t it? The one you used to shoot that MI5 man. You told me you’d buried it.’ She started to get to her feet, sick of his lies.

  ‘Please Tina, don’t go. I’m not going to use it. It’s not even loaded. I just need to scare him, that’s all.’ He replaced the gun under his jacket and stood up, blocking her way back to the aisle.

  ‘You mean I need to scare him, because if he puts you under, it’s going to be me holding the gun. You’re using me, Sean, and I don’t like that.’

  ‘I’m your only hope of finding that girl,’ he stated simply. ‘You know that.’

  For a few seconds, they stood there staring at each other. The terrible thing was, Tina knew he was right. She’d run out of leads and she couldn’t rely on Mike. Lauren Donaldson wasn’t even his case, and it sounded like every effort was being made from on high – maybe even as high as the Home Secretary – to scupper his investigation. Sean was her only leverage.

  ‘I saved your life once, Tina. Now’s your chance to save mine.’

  ‘I told you. We’re even.’

  ‘Are we? You’ve gone out of your way to help me, no question, but you wouldn’t even be breathing now if it wasn’t for me. And I hate to use this on you, I really do, but I’ve got no choice.’ The words were rushing out of him now in an urgent burst. ‘Unless you help me, I’m finished. I may not even be alive in a week. This is our last chance.’

  Tina had known it would come to this from the moment she’d agreed to meet him here. But the full consequences of her actions were only now dawning on her. If they got Bronson to put Sean under, Tina knew she’d have to stand there pointing a gun at him, and the fact that it would be unloaded wasn’t going to help her if it ever came out in court. She’d still go down for a long time, the prospect of which terrified her.

  But Sean was right. This could be their last chance.

  He stood staring at her now, the desperation clear in his eyes.

  ‘OK,’ said Tina at last. ‘But we’re going to do it my way.’

  Fifty-one

  Robert Whatret, the man I’d always known as Dr Bronson in the short and rather unproductive time we’d known each other, lived in the basement flat of a ramshackle 1950s townhouse in an equally ramshackle street in one of the less salubrious parts of Acton.

  As we stepped out of Tina’s car I was hit by the strong
and not entirely unpleasant smell of fried food in the air, courtesy of the fast-food takeaway on the corner. It was 6.40 p.m. and the sun was beginning to set in the west. Rap music played through an open window on the other side of the street and the sound of slow-moving rush-hour traffic from the A40 were loud in my ears. Somehow it disappointed me that the distinguished-looking therapist I’d spent so many afternoons with lived in a rundown place like this. I guess it just added to the lie that had been the last two months of my life.

  We’d already decided how we were going to do this. Tina would ring on the bell, looking official, while I waited out of sight. Our theory was that he’d answer it because she looked unthreatening, and as soon as she was inside I’d come down the steps and she’d let me in. There was, of course, no guarantee that he was at home, or even for that matter alive. We’d know soon enough.

  We crossed the road in the same silence we’d endured during the journey there. I could tell Tina was hugely uncomfortable doing this, and I felt bad having used emotional blackmail to get her to help me, but not bad enough to regret it.

  The steps to Whatret’s place went straight down from the street and were covered in splats of pigeon turd. I watched from out of sight of his front door and cobweb-encrusted front window while Tina went down and rang. The street was empty bar a couple of scraggy-looking kids messing about outside the fast-food place a good thirty yards away, but I felt conspicuous hanging around in full view of the other houses. I was still wearing my ticket inspector disguise but it wasn’t exactly foolproof, and all it would take was one eagle-eyed curtain twitcher getting a half-decent look at me and the whole thing was over.

  Tina rang Whatret’s bell a second time, then I heard her mutter a curse. ‘Get down here, Sean,’ she hissed. ‘I can see him in there. He’s heading out the back.’

  I hurried down the steps and saw that Tina had a set of picks out and was carefully picking the lock. She pushed open the door and stepped back. ‘He’s all yours.’

  I ran through the dingy living room and into the long, narrow kitchen. Whatret was at the back door, hurriedly trying to unlock it. He turned when he saw me coming, a look of abject terror on his face, and threw up his arms in surrender. But I wasn’t in a very forgiving mood, and I batted them aside and punched him in the face. His head hit the doorframe and he let out a painful grunt as I grabbed him round the neck, dragged him back through the kitchen and shoved him down on one of his chairs. Tina had come inside and shut the door but was standing in the shadows, a scarf pulled up over her face. We’d agreed that she’d play as minimal a part in this as possible.

  ‘I think we need to talk, Doc,’ I said, glaring down at him. ‘And don’t look at her. Look at me.’

  ‘Matthew, please …’ he gasped, resetting his glasses and trying to regain some composure. His hair was a mess and his nose was bleeding where I’d hit him, but the terror in his expression was no longer there.

  That changed when I produced the gun and pointed it down at him. ‘I think we can dispense with the Matthew now, Mr Whatret. I know who I am now and, more importantly, I know exactly who you are too. A disgraced ex-con, just like me.’

  ‘Please don’t point that thing at me. I have a heart problem.’

  ‘Answer my questions and we’ll leave you in peace. But mess me around and I’ll kill you. You must understand that. I have nothing to lose, and I’ve killed before.’

  He looked up at me, and I saw that his hands were shaking. ‘I believe you. Can I have a drink, please?’

  ‘No. Who were you working for when you used to visit me?’

  ‘I only know his name as Mr H. I didn’t even meet him until the other night when he brought me to that barn where they were keeping you. I know nothing about him, I promise you.’

  ‘When did he hire you?’

  ‘Two months ago. He said you’d just come out of a coma lasting three months, and there was information that you had that he badly needed but, because you were suffering from retrograde amnesia, this information was going to have to be …’ He paused. ‘Extracted from you. We agreed that it would have to be done under hypnosis.’

  ‘And this information was the location of bodies, wasn’t it?’

  He looked nervous. ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘Whose bodies?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’

  I let him see my finger tighten on the trigger, and my expression darkened. ‘You’re lying.’

  He lifted his hands, terrified. ‘I’m not, Sean. You have to believe me. I didn’t want to do any of this. I was blackmailed. I’ve got no money, no prospects. I had no choice.’ His face crinkled up with emotion and I thought he was going to burst into tears. ‘Please. I had no choice.’

  In spite of myself, I felt a little sorry for him. ‘So how did it all work? I know you implanted false memories in me. I was convinced I had a sister, and I still can’t remember anything about the undercover job I was doing when I had my accident.’

  Whatret removed his glasses and ran a hand across his face. ‘It was a very delicate procedure. I needed to convince you that you were someone else with a whole different set of memories. What you almost certainly don’t remember was that probably eighty per cent of our session time involved hypnotherapy, and yes, I’m sorry to have to admit that I did implant false memories in your subconscious. I also had to work very hard to stop other memories coming out, particularly the work you were involved in immediately prior to your accident. Mr H didn’t want you working out what had happened to you before I got the information they needed. That was why the two individuals looking after you, who incidentally I never knew by name, kept you regularly supplied with a cocktail of a number of inhibiting drugs, leaving you in a permanently passive state.’

  He sighed. ‘The problem was that in a delicate procedure such as this, things will almost certainly go wrong. Mr H told me that you’ – he emphasized the ‘you’ – ‘had buried three bodies somewhere, having been to a house with another man, whose name I was never told, to collect them. To find out where you’d buried them I had to continually try to walk you through what happened that night under hypnotherapy, while making sure you remembered nothing when the session ended. But when you hit your head in the cellar the other week you started having flashbacks to that night with the bodies, and dreaming about it. I think we were getting very close to finding out what happened, but then you escaped. And now … Now you’re here and you can see me for what I really am. You may not believe it, Sean, but I’m truly sorry for my part in all this.’

  He no longer looked terrified as he spoke these last words. He looked unburdened and genuinely remorseful. Then again, he’d looked a pretty genuine, caring guy when we’d done our sessions together.

  ‘You know, I actually liked you,’ I told him, making no effort to lower the gun. ‘You disappoint me.’

  ‘I disappoint myself. I’ve been doing that a long time.’

  ‘I can’t believe I would have knowingly buried people’s bodies.’ I was also surprised at the number. Three? Who’d been the third person then?

  ‘I’m only repeating what I was told by Mr H. You never confirmed whether you did or not to me. In fact, regarding your account of what happened in the house with the dead bodies, I only know as much as you do.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘You need to hypnotize me. I have to find out exactly who I was and what I was doing before my car accident.’

  He frowned. ‘Are you sure about this? I can do it, but you might not like what you find.’

  ‘So be it. At least then I’ll know who I am.’ But inside I was feeling real doubt. Yes, I’d done good things in my life. Yes, I believed I was a good man. But I also knew, when I was brave enough to admit it to myself, that I was capable of doing some pretty bad things too.

  I turned and walked over to where Tina stood impassively, handing her the gun and giving her a nod to tell her I knew what I was doing, even though I wasn’t at all sure I did.

&nb
sp; Then I sat down opposite the man I used to know as Dr Bronson and looked him right in the eye. ‘Do it,’ I said.

  Fifty-two

  Tina stood to one side of Whatret and Sean, the gun down by her side at Whatret’s request, since he’d claimed – with some justification – that he couldn’t work effectively with a gun to his head.

  He started off by talking to Sean in soothing tones, not unlike a parent talking to a child. His voice was soft and sonorous and Tina had to concentrate hard not to become entranced by it herself. She would have liked just to leave the room but she didn’t trust Whatret not to try something, so instead she thought about her grandma – of happy childhood times; of tea and cakes and Christmases; of the unconditional love she’d felt for her.

  She could see Sean going, his head starting to tilt a little from side to side, and then he slumped back in the chair, his eyes shut, a peaceful expression on his face. She half expected Whatret to glance over to check whether she too had succumbed to his mantra, but he didn’t. Instead he continued to talk to Sean, bringing up each of the false memories he’d clearly implanted over a number of sessions, and explaining that they were, indeed, false, and that when Sean woke up he would have forgotten them. It all seemed incredibly simple and Tina couldn’t see how it could possibly work, but she hoped to God it did. There was no shortage of fake memories either. They ranged from having a sister and not a brother to a career spent in teaching, and plenty in between. There were also real memories that had been removed. It seemed that Whatret had convinced Sean he’d never married, or fathered children, and had also deliberately blocked him from remembering what had happened to him after he’d left prison.

  Whatret kept Sean under for almost half an hour, and Tina had long since mentally drifted away when he finally paused, took a deep breath, and told Sean that he was going to count to five and when he’d finished he would wake up.

  As he counted, Tina’s finger tensed on the gun’s trigger. When he reached five, she watched as Sean’s eyes opened and he sat up in the chair, looking over at Whatret as if nothing had happened. And then his eyes narrowed.