Dead Scared

‘SO THEY ARE acting alone,’ said Evi. ‘Whatever might be leading up to it, in the end the decision to die is theirs.’

‘That would appear to be the case with Bryony,’ I agreed. ‘Danielle was very hazy about details but I’m sure she’d remember being lynched. Difficult to ask the others, of course.’

‘And not dreams?’ said Evi. ‘You’re sure that’s what she meant?’

‘Not completely, but it fits,’ I said. ‘Bryony herself never talked about bad dreams, remember, she talked about someone coming into her room at night and touching her. It was her room-mate, Talaith, who mentioned that Bryony used to scream in her sleep.’

‘Jessica was very clear,’ said Evi. ‘She was having very bad dreams. Although she was vague about the detail.’

‘With Nicole, it was her friends again,’ I said. ‘They heard her yelling at night.’

We were sitting in Evi’s kitchen, a lovely large room at the back of the house that overlooked the garden. A huge cedar tree stood in the centre of the lawn, with other smaller trees and bushes around the outer beds. A low brick wall with a centrally placed iron gate formed the boundary at the lower edge. Beyond it, I could see heavily pollarded willows. The sky outside seemed to have fallen lower, and had taken on the colour of clotted cream.

‘If these so-called dreams are actually vague memories of real abuse, why aren’t the girls waking up and screaming their heads off the minute the bedroom door opens?’

‘I’d guess they’re sedated,’ said Evi, indicating the coroner’s list. ‘Whoever’s doing this has a pretty good grasp of sedative drugs. We’ve got Rohypnol, ketamine. Get enough of either in your system and you’re going to be pretty submissive, with only the vaguest recollection or none at all the next day.’

‘Fits so far,’ I said. ‘But sometimes they do wake up screaming. Is whatever’s happening to them so bad it’s overriding the effect of the sedative?’

‘Unless there was actual pain involved, that’s unlikely,’ said Evi. ‘And these girls aren’t physically harmed, remember. I’d say there was something else going on as well.’

As if what we had already wasn’t enough. ‘Something else?’ I said.

‘There are a lot of hallucinogens on this list,’ she said. ‘Several of the victims had traces of psychedelic drugs in their systems.’

I must have looked blank because Evi gave a heavy sigh. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘You’re aware that hallucinogenic drugs induce experiences that are different from those of ordinary consciousness?’

‘You mean not real?’

She nodded her head. ‘Yes, you could say experiences that aren’t real. But under that umbrella there is a huge range of possibilities, depending upon the type of drug taken and the circumstances of the user.’

The dog had followed us from the sitting room but had transferred his allegiance completely to Evi. He was lying at her feet now, on the hard tiled floor, gazing up at her adoringly. Which says something about the loyalty of dogs, it seems to me. I’d rescued him from a bullet, fed him, offered him shelter and now he’d fallen in love with the prettier face.

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Hallucinogenic drugs are grouped into three basic types,’ said Evi. ‘First of all you have the psychedelic drugs. These don’t induce hallucinations in the true sense, they just alter the user’s perception of reality. Someone under the influence might see unusually bright colours, or inanimate objects move in some way. Often senses get mixed up, people talk about hearing colours and seeing sounds.’

‘Far out,’ I said.

Evi didn’t smile. ‘Psychedelic isn’t a hippy term, by the way, it’s from the ancient Greek,’ she said. ‘Psyche meaning mind or soul and delos meaning reveal or manifest. LSD is a psychedelic drug, so are DMT and mescaline. And what they do is to bring some hidden part of you to the surface.’

‘Hidden but real?’ I said.

‘Exactly. There were medical experiments in the late 1960s, the theory being that use of psychedelic drugs could bring to the fore-front of a person’s mind whatever they were keeping hidden. Risky, of course, because when people are keeping memories tucked away it’s usually for a good reason. Artificially forcing them into the open could be very dangerous.’

‘If someone had a dark secret, psychedelics could root it out?’ I asked, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. I had a few secrets of my own that I wanted to keep firmly in the closet.

‘Yes. Then you have the dissociative drugs,’ Evi said. ‘They induce a perception of the outside world’s being dream-like or false. You’re aware of what’s going on around you but you feel detached. People have reported a sense of watching themselves from a distance, even of seeing the world like a giant cinema screen. Are you with me?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘And typical dissociative drugs might be?’

‘PCP, ketamine again. Both initially developed as anaesthetics for surgery. Both on this list.’

‘And the third group,’ I prompted.

‘Possibly the most dangerous, the deliriants,’ said Evi. ‘These can cause hallucinations in the true sense. Users have conversations with people who aren’t there, see things that have no basis in reality.’

‘And these things they see, are they likely to be scary?’ I asked.

‘Depends,’ said Evi. ‘Someone in a good frame of mind, in a situation in which they feel safe, would be likely to have a good trip.’

‘The converse being that someone depressed, anxious, in a situation where they feel vulnerable and scared, will have a bad one?’

‘Someone in that position should never take hallucinogens,’ said Evi. ‘The consequences would be dire.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you’re depressed, vulnerable and scared, you’re then sedated and abused and, just for good measure, you’re given a pretty powerful hallucinogenic. What would the effect be?’

I’d never seen Evi look so pale. ‘It really doesn’t bear thinking about,’ she said.

I looked at the list of drugs Evi had brought back from the coroner’s office. Some of them I didn’t recognize.

‘So are they taking this shit knowingly, or are they being slipped it without their knowledge?’ I asked.

‘Bryony insisted to her counsellor that she wasn’t taking anything,’ said Evi. ‘And she must have had Nick convinced as well for him to prescribe the antidepressant he did.’

‘Jessica’s friends thought she was using,’ I said. ‘Although from how they described her behaviour, I wouldn’t have said it was typical of an addict.’

‘I don’t think Jessica was a user,’ said Evi. ‘I would have noticed the signs. She wasn’t displaying them when she came to see me.’

‘What are the signs?’ I asked.

‘Pupil dilation, unusual pallor, rapid respiration, sweating, trembling of the extremities,’ said Evi. ‘Pretty much the state you were in this morning.’

OK, that was a bit unexpected.

‘And the other day,’ she went on, before I could think of what to say. ‘When you came to see me in college. I noticed then you didn’t look well.’

‘I’ve never taken a recreational drug in my life,’ I said truthfully. ‘I’m fighting off a cold, that’s all.’

‘Had any bad dreams?’ Evi asked me.

I stood and walked over to where the dog had fallen fast asleep on a rug in front of the cooker. Its legs stuck out at angles from its body, displaying its undercarriage to the world.

‘This dog’s a bitch,’ I said.

‘I think she’s quite sweet,’ Evi replied.

‘I’ve been referring to her as a he all day,’ I said. I turned back to look at Evi again. ‘Did you know?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I just assumed biology wasn’t your strong point. And a dog’s gender-confusion is the least of our worries. So, want to tell me about these dreams you’ve been having?’

Evi thought I … I shook my head. ‘It’s not possible.’

She didn’t move, didn’t speak.

‘I dreamed that someone was trying to break into my room,’ I admitted. ‘That I heard them coming in and couldn’t move. It was pretty scary. When I woke up, I was in the main room, cuddling the dog. Door locked, window closed, no sign of a break-in, several pissed-off girls on the corridor.’

‘When you left the party last night, where did you go?’ asked Evi.

‘I drove to a burger bar to get Sniffy-Dog something to eat, then back to college,’ I told her. ‘My room-mate was out. I made a cup of tea, did some work and went to bed.’

‘It must have been at the party,’ said Evi. ‘Which, I agree, seems unlikely.’

‘It is,’ I said. ‘Don’t these things act pretty quickly?’

Evi shrugged. ‘Some do, some don’t,’ she said, not too helpfully.

‘I was fine driving home. I worked for about an hour when I got in. I felt absolutely normal when I went to bed.’

‘You made tea?’

‘Hallucinogenic drugs via a teabag?’ I said. ‘No really, my bad dreams and the state I was in this morning were down to a combination of stress, tiredness, a disturbing late-night conversation – with you – and the possible onset of flu. I’m feeling a lot better now, honestly.’

Evi stared at me for a moment before getting up and fetching her medical bag from a closet in the hallway. ‘How about we send off some samples?’ she said, from the doorway. ‘Just to make sure.’

I opened my mouth to refuse and realized it couldn’t do any harm. I would know, surely, if I’d been drugged, but if it gave Evi peace of mind …

‘So just going with your theory for a minute,’ I said. ‘How can drugs be administered to people without them knowing about it?’ I watched her take needle, syringe, vials and a urine specimen jar from her bag. She ripped the packaging off the needle.

‘Left arm, roll up your sleeve,’ she told me, as she fitted the various pieces together. ‘Well, there’s a whole collection that can be slipped into drinks,’ she went on, as I did what I was told. ‘That’s how the date-rape drugs work. But students tend to be quite wise to that these days.’

‘Ouch,’ I contributed, helpfully, as Evi bagged and labelled my blood and put it to one side on the table. ‘It can be sent off first thing Monday morning,’ she said.

Evi hadn’t finished with me yet. When I got back from the loo and handed over my urine specimen, she dug into her bag again, then shone a light into my eyes, took my pulse and blood pressure and listened to my breathing with a stethoscope.

‘You’ll live,’ she told me, in the end.

‘Let’s hope Jessica does,’ I said. When she didn’t reply, I regretted being flippant. Evi cared about her patients. She was genuinely worried about Jessica. So was I, come to that.

‘Maybe you should sleep somewhere else for a few nights,’ she said. ‘There are several spare bedrooms here.’

I shook my head. ‘Without clearing it with my SO, I can’t make any major changes,’ I said. ‘And until those results come back, we don’t know anything for sure. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.’

Evi looked troubled but she didn’t argue. ‘The coroner is planning to send this list to the chief constable on Monday,’ she said, picking up the printed sheet Francis Warrener had given her. ‘What will he do, do you think?’

‘Nothing in a hurry,’ I said. ‘Which won’t help Jessica much. He’ll most likely send it down to CID, ask them to have another look at the various cases and report back to him. As the girls are all dead anyway, it’s unlikely to get a high priority. They’ll get round to it in the next few weeks.’

The carriage clock in Evi’s hallway struck the quarter-hour and there didn’t seem much more we could do for one day. ‘I need to run,’ I said, getting up and finding my bag. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘Laura,’ Evi called after me, as I had my hand on the door and was about to step out. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

I turned to see her holding up my improvised dog lead. ‘Well, here’s the thing,’ I said. ‘We don’t know anyone’s reported her missing yet but it’s only a matter of time. In the meantime, I thought she should stay with you.’

Evi’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair. ‘And what gave you the idea that would be …’

‘Well, she obviously likes you,’ I said. ‘And from what I can tell it’s mutual.’

‘I can’t have a dog, Laura. How would I walk her?’

‘I’ll pop round in the morning to do that,’ I said. ‘Try her for tonight. I know she’s soft as pig-shit but she’s pretty big and when she barks she sounds like a Dobermann. And just in case the excitement of the last few hours has made you forget it, you have a stalker. If anyone’s been breaking in here, they’ll think twice now you’ve got Sniffy-Dog staying with you.’

‘What on earth do I feed her?’

‘Dog food,’ I replied. ‘There are twenty-four cans outside your front door. I bought them earlier. I’ll just carry them in for you. She doesn’t need a basket. She’ll sleep on your bedroom carpet.’

‘She won’t get through twenty-four cans in one night,’ grumbled Evi as I walked past her into the kitchen, two trays of dog food in my arms. Sniffy-Dog didn’t even wake up as I left. She’d already decided where she was staying.