“What are you doing here?” Jo had appeared behind him silently, wearing a white bathrobe.

He had slammed down the lid of the bread bin. “Jo, I had to talk to you-”

“No, Nick, there is nothing to talk about.” She had not smiled.

Staring at her, he had realized suddenly that he wanted to take her in his arms. “Oh, Jo, love. I’m sorry-”

“So am I, Nick. Very. Is it true what Judy said? Am I likely to go crazy?”

“That’s not what she said, Jo.”

“Is that what Sam said?”

“No, and you know it isn’t. All he said was that you should be very careful.” He had kept his voice deliberately light.

“How come Judy knows so much about it? Did you discuss it with her?”

“Of course I didn’t. She listened to a private phone call. She had no business to. And she didn’t hear very much, I promise. She made a lot of it up.”

“But you had no business to make that call, Nick.” Suddenly she had been blazingly angry with him. “ Christ! I wish you would keep out of my affairs. I don’t want you to meddle. I don’t want your brother to meddle! I don’t want anything to do with either of the Franklyns ever again. Now, get out!”

“No, Jo. Not till I know you’re all right.”

“I’m all right. Now, get out.” Her voice had been shaking. “Get out, get out, get out !”

“Jo, for God’s sake be quiet.” Nick had backed away from her as her voice rose. “I’m going. But please promise me something-”

“ Get out! ”

He had gone.


***

Nick took a couple of gulps from his glass and topped it up again before going back into the studio.

Pete Leveson was standing next to Judy, staring at the canvas.

Nick groaned as Pete raised a hand. “I thought I’d find you here. Has anyone told you yet that you are five kinds of shit?”

Nick handed him one of the glasses. “You can’t call me anything I haven’t called myself already,” he said dryly.

Judy whirled around. “All right, you guys. Stop being so bloody patronizing. I’m the one who said it all, I’m the one who told her, not Nick. If you’ve come here to reproach anyone, it should be me, not him.” She put her hands on her hips defiantly.

Pete gave a small grin. “Right. It was you.”

“Was Jo very upset later?” she was unable to resist asking after a moment.

“A little. Of course she was. She didn’t believe anything you said, but you chose a pretty public place to make some very provocative statements.”

“No one heard them-”

“Judy.” Pete gave her a withering look. “You were heard by virtually every person in that party, including Nigel Dempster. I’ve been on the phone to him, but unfortunately he feels it was too juicy a tidbit to miss his column. After all, he’s got a job to do, much like mine when you think about it. ‘Well-known columnist accused of being a nut case by redheaded painter at Heacham party…’ How could he resist a story like that? And he was there in person! It’ll be in Friday’s Mail .”

“Hell!” Nick hit his forehead with the flat of his hand. “They’ll crucify Jo. She’s trodden on too many toes in her time.”

“She’ll be okay,” Judy broke in. “She’s tough.”

“She’s not half as tough as she makes out,” Nick replied slowly. “Underneath she’s very vulnerable.”

Judy looked away. “And I’m not, I suppose?”

“We are not talking about you, Judy. It is not your sanity that is going to be questioned in the press.”

“She can always sue them.”

“If she sues anyone, it would be you. For defamation or slander. And it would serve you right.”

Judy blanched. Without a word she took the glass out of Nick’s hand and walked with it to the far end of the studio where she stood looking out of the window to the bare earth and washing lines of the garden below.

Pete frowned. “Just how much truth is there in any of this story?” he asked in a low voice.

“None at all. Judy misunderstood completely.” Nick compressed his lips angrily. “Squash the story if you can, Pete. It’s all rubbish anyway, but if it wasn’t”-he paused fractionally-“if it wasn’t, think how much damage it could do.”

Pete nodded. “I had a reason for asking. You are sure that hypnosis can’t hurt her in any way?”

“Of course not.” Nick gave an uncomfortable little laugh. Then he looked at him sharply. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. No reason at all…”

3

While Tim locked the car, Jo stared up at the front of the house. It was a tall, shabby building in the center of a long terrace of once-elegant Edwardian town houses.

“Jo, about last night-” Tim was pocketing his car keys.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Jo hunched her shoulders. “It was a great party for some. Now please forget about it.”

“But the way Judy behaved was appalling-”

“She’s a jealous lady, Tim, fighting for a man. Women are like that. Primeval!”

“And aren’t you going to fight too?”

“For Nick? No.” She gave him a bleak smile. “Come on, Tim. Let’s go and see some regression!”

Tim glanced at her warningly. “Jo, love. Can you bear in mind that this chap is a friend of a friend? Go easy on the put-downs.”

“I’m not going to put anyone down, Tim.” She hitched her thumb through the strap of the bag on her shoulder. “I’m going strictly as an observer, I shan’t say a word. Promise.”

The front door was opened by a woman in a long Laura Ashley dress, her fair hair caught back in an untidy ponytail. She had a clipboard in her hand.

“Mr. Heacham and Miss Clifford?” she confirmed. “The others are all here. Follow me, please.”

The dark hallway was carpeted wall to wall with a thick brown carpet that muffled their footsteps as they followed her past several closed doors and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. There, in a large room, facing onto the long narrow gardens that backed the houses, they found Bill Walton and some dozen other people, already seated on a semicircle of upright chairs.

Walton held out his hand to them. “How are you? As you requested, Tim, I’ve told everyone that a lady and gentleman of the press will be here. No one objects.” He was a small, wizened man of about fifty, his sandy hair standing out in wisps around his head. Jo looked apprehensively into his prominent green eyes as she shook hands.

Somewhere outside children were playing in the evening sunlight. She could hear their excited shouting and the dull thud as a foot connected with a ball. In the room there was a muted expectant silence. She could see two girls seated side by side at the end of the row. Both now looked distinctly frightened. Next to them a man in a turtleneck sweater whispered to his companion and laughed quietly.

The room was a study-a large, comfortable, untidy room, one end of the wall lined with books, the opposite one hung with a group of Japanese prints mounted on broad strips of fawn linen. Jo took her place on one of the remaining chairs while Tim slipped unobtrusively behind her, perching on the arm of a chair by the fire. He removed the lens cap from his camera and put it quietly down on the seat beside him.

Walton moved to the windows and half drew the curtains, shutting out the soft golden glow of the evening. Then he switched on a desk lamp. He grinned at the small audience before him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, first let me welcome you all. I hope you are going to find this evening instructive and entertaining. Let me say at the outset that there is nothing whatsoever to be afraid of. No one can be hypnotized who does not wish it.” He glanced at Jo as, quietly, she slipped a notebook out of her bag. She rested it, still shut, on her knee. “My usual procedure is to make a few simple tests initially to find out how many of you are good hypnotic subjects, then from among those who seem to be suitable I shall ask for volunteers to be put into deep hypnosis and regressed if possible. I should emphasize that it does not always happen, and there have been occasions when I have found no one at all suitable among my audience.” He laughed happily. “That is why I prefer to have a dozen or so people present. It gives us a better choice.”

Jo shifted uncomfortably on the wooden chair and crossed her legs. Beside her the others were all staring at him, half hypnotized already, she suspected, by the quiet smoothness of his voice.

“Now,” he continued, hitching himself up onto the desk so that he was sitting facing them, his legs swinging loosely, crossed at the ankle. “Perhaps you would all look at my finger.” He raised it slowly until it was level with his eyes. “Now, as I raise my hand you will find that your own right hand rises into the air of its own accord.”

Jo felt her fingers close convulsively around her pencil. Her hands remained firmly in her lap. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the hand of the man next to her as it twitched slightly and moved, then it too fell back onto his knee. She noticed his Adam’s apple jump sharply as he swallowed. She looked back at Walton, who was watching them all with apparent lack of interest. “Fine. Now I want you all to sit back and relax against the back of your chairs. Perhaps you would fix your eyes on the light behind me here on the desk. The light is bright and hard on the eyes. Perhaps if you were to close your eyes for a few moments and rest them.” His voice had taken on a monotonous gentle tone that soothed the ears. “Fine. Now it may be that when you try to open them you will find that you can’t. Your lids are sealed. The light is too bright to look at. The darkness is preferable.” Jo could feel the nails of her hands biting into her palms. She leaned forward and stared down the line of seated people. Two were blinking at the light almost defiantly. The others all sat quietly, their eyes closed. Walton was smiling. Quietly he stood up and padded forward over the thick carpet. “Now I am going to touch your hands, one by one, and when I pick them up you will find that you cannot put them down.” His voice had taken on a peremptory tone of command. He approached the man next to Jo, ignoring her completely. The man’s eyes were open and he watched almost frightened as Walton caught his wrist and lifted the limp hand. He let go and to Jo’s surprise the arm stayed where it was, uncomfortably suspended in midair. Walton made no comment. He passed on to the next person in the line. Behind her Jo heard the faint click of the camera shutter.