time?’ Jo interrupted him. ‘Oh no, not again. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t take it. I have enough material here to write my article and that is all I want.’
For a moment he stared at her in dismay. Then he shrugged and resumed his seat. ‘Of course, I cannot compel you to return, but I do most ardently hope you will. Not only for your researches, but to help me with mine. This Matilda, she seems a remarkable girl. I should like to know more about her.’
Jo hesitated. Then she stood up. ‘No, I’m sorry. It is interesting, I agree, but I don’t like it. I was so much in your power, in your control. You could be levitating me next, or making me go stiff as a board, whatever you call it, for all I know.’ She shuddered.
‘Cataleptic.’ He smiled again. ‘You were in a far deeper state of trance than is needed to induce catalepsis, my dear.’
She had begun collecting her notebook from the table but at his words she swung to face him. ‘You mean you could have done that to me?’
‘Of course.’
‘You didn’t, though.’
‘No, although it is still used by some practitioners as a method of gauging the depth of trance reached. I prefer to use a pin.’ His eyes twinkled behind his glasses.
‘A pin?’
‘Oh yes. You’ll hear it on the tape. I stuck a pin into the palm of your hand. Had you not been in a sufficiently deep trance you would have shrieked at me, and bled of course.’
Jo stared at both her hands in disbelief. ‘And I did neither?’
‘You did neither.’
She shivered. ‘It’s horrible. You could end up having complete domination over people without them ever knowing it!’
Carl looked offended. ‘My dear, we have a professional code, I assure you, like all doctors, and, as I said, always a chaperone.’
‘In case you get your evil way with a woman patient?’ The strain on Jo’s face lessened as she smiled at last.
‘Even hypnotherapists are human!’ he responded.
‘And as such are liable to be hurt by what I write about them in the magazine?’ Serious again, Jo swung her shoulder bag onto her arm. She picked up her tape recorder and stood up, shocked to find her knees were still trembling.
Bennet made a deprecatory gesture with his hands. ‘I will admit I have read some of your work. I believe it to be well researched and objective. I can ask for no more from you in my case.’
‘Even though I’m not converted to your theories of reincarnation?’
‘All I ask is an open mind.’ He went to the door ahead of her. ‘Are you sure you feel well enough to go? You wouldn’t like to rest a while longer?’
She shook her head, suddenly anxious to be outside in the fresh air.
‘Then I will say goodbye. But even if you feel you must leave us now, I beg you to consider returning for another session. It might help to clarify matters for both of us.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘Well then, can I ask you to note down every detail of what you remember?’ he begged. ‘While it is still fresh in your mind. I think you will find your memory clear and complete. Far, far more than you described to me. All kinds of details which you did not mention at the time but which you will remember later. You’ll do it anyway for your article, I’m sure.’ He was standing in front of the door, barring the way. ‘And you’ll check the history books to see if you can find out whether Matilda existed?’
She gave a tight smile. ‘I will. I’m going to check everything meticulously. That I promise you.’
‘And you will tell me if you find anything? Anything at all?’ He took her hand and gripped it firmly. ‘Even if she is the heroine of a novel you read last year.’ He grinned.
‘You don’t believe that?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but I think you may. Perhaps you would come back, just to discuss what you have discovered,’ he went on hopefully as he opened the door for her at last. ‘Will you do that?’
‘I’ll certainly send you a copy of the article before it goes to press.’
He sighed. ‘I’ll look forward to that. But remember, you know where I am if you need me.’
He watched as she walked along the carpeted hallway towards the stairs, then he closed the door and leaned against it.
Sarah was collecting the cups. ‘Do you think she will come back?’ she said over her shoulder. She twitched the rug on the sofa straight and selected a new blank tape for the machine.
Bennet had not moved from the door. ‘That girl is the best subject I’ve ever come across,’ he said slowly.
Sarah moved, the tray in her hand, towards the kitchen. ‘And yet you were dreading this appointment.’
He nodded. ‘Pete Leveson had told me how anti she was. She had made up her mind before she ever met me that I was a charlatan.’ He chuckled. ‘But it is the strong-willed, if they make up their minds to surrender to hypnosis, who are by far the best subjects. This one was amazing. The way she took it over. I couldn’t reach her, Sarah! I could not reach her! She was out of my control.’
‘It was frightening,’ Sarah said vehemently. ‘I wouldn’t have liked to be in her shoes. I bet she has nightmares about it. Did you notice? She wasn’t half so confident and sure of herself afterwards.’
He had begun to pace the carpet restlessly. ‘I have to get her back here. It is imperative that we try it again.’
Sarah glanced at him. ‘Weren’t you afraid, Carl? Just for a moment?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘I didn’t think it could happen. But it did. And that is why it is so important. She’ll come, though. She’ll think about it and she’ll come back.’ He smiled at Sarah vaguely, taking off his spectacles once more and squinting through them at some imaginary speck on the lens. ‘If she’s half the journalist I think she is, she’ll come back.’
As the cab drew away from the kerb Jo settled back on the broad slippery seat and closed her eyes against the glare of the sunlight reflected in the spray thrown up from the road by the traffic. Then she opened them again and looked at her watch. It was barely five. She had lived through twenty-four hours of fear and horror and it was barely five o’clock. In front of her the folding seats blurred; above them the tariff card in the window floated disembodied for a moment. Her hands were shaking.
With a squeal of brakes the taxi stopped at the traffic lights and her bag shot off the seat onto the floor. As she bent to retrieve it she found herself wincing with pain. Her fingertips felt bruised and torn and yet, when she examined them, they were unharmed. She frowned, remembering
