When Your Eyes Close: A psychological thriller unlike anything you’ve read before!. Tanya Farrelly

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СКАЧАТЬ that his mother had taken Valium after the shock of his father’s death, so he supposed these drugs were used to treat a number of conditions. He thanked the man, put the small pharmacy bag in the inside pocket of his jacket and went back out in the rain.

      In the car, he fumbled on the floor until he came across a half bottle of water that had rolled under the passenger seat. He swallowed two tablets and hoped that it wouldn’t be long before they began to take effect. The rain was still teeming down as he exited the car park; the wipers, set on automatic, raced to clear the windscreen. The coffee hadn’t helped; if anything, it had made him feel even more jittery. He thought of the session with the hypnotist – about what she’d said about confabulation. He’d looked it up on the Internet and the definition was just as Tessa had said: a false memory, or pseudo memory, a term that was used in cognitive psychology defined as a recollection of something that had never happened.

      He’d considered what she’d said about some people believing that confabulations under hypnosis were memories from their past lives, and he’d changed his search to ‘hypnosis and past life regression’, laughing at himself even as he did so. If only Michelle could see him now; she loved that kind of thing. He thought of all the times he’d teased her about her interest in the occult. He’d scoffed when she’d told him about her visits to an elderly gypsy lady – even when she’d insisted that the woman had known things, specific things about her family that couldn’t simply have been speculation. ‘And what does this lady do?’ he’d asked. ‘Read your palm, your cards?’ Michelle had told him that, no, the woman simply held your hand and gently rubbed it, that it was as if by touching you that she could access those private recesses of your mind. ‘Of course she can,’ he’d argued, ‘your hand probably jerks every time she hits on something and she just goes with it.’ Michelle had laughed and called him a sceptic. What would she think of him now, making appointments with a hypnotist and reading about regression and past lives?

      Nick was preoccupied with such thoughts when a dark shape suddenly stepped in the road in front of him. He jerked the wheel, thankful there were no cars on the other side of the road. Heart hammering, he pulled into the kerb and checked the rear-view mirror. The man had reached the opposite side of the road and was fumbling with something that Nick imagined to be a sleeping bag. Nick got out of the car, his legs weak, and walked back to the man who seemed ready to bed down in a doorway for the night.

      ‘Jesus, man, are you all right? I could have killed you,’ he said.

      The man looked at him unfazed and continued setting up his bed for the night, a dirty green sleeping bag that looked as though, like the man, it had been soaked through.

      Nick put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a fifty-euro note. ‘Look, get yourself into a hostel for the night, man. It’s no night to be in the street.’

      The stranger looked at him, and at the money in his hand. ‘Are you sure? I wasn’t asking …’ There were tears in the man’s eyes.

      Nick was surprised at his timbre. He didn’t sound like someone who should’ve been in the street. Embarrassed, he thrust the money into the man’s hand.

      ‘God bless you for this,’ the man said. ‘God bless you.’

      Nick dashed back to the car. When he looked in the mirror again, he saw that the man had bundled up his sleeping bag and was walking in a brisk manner in the direction of the city. Only if he were lucky, Nick knew, would he find a shelter for the night.

      Shaken by the experience, along with his symptoms, Nick drove home slowly, absorbed still by thoughts of reincarnation. In his search that afternoon, he’d come across an excerpt from a book called Many Lives, Many Masters, by a Dr Brian L. Weiss, MD, an American psychotherapist. It told the story of how Weiss, a sceptic, had learned to believe in past lives when a patient of his had been accidentally transported to a past life during standard hypnotherapy. Nick had read the two-page extract and then re-read it. It seemed that Weiss’s patient had found herself in a different time and place, just as he had. He’d refreshed his search. The Internet was full of stories of people who claimed to have lived before. Finally, annoyed with himself for even entertaining such a ridiculous idea, he’d closed down his computer. Hocus pocus, that’s all it was. What he’d experienced was a confabulation. It had to be.

      Chiding himself still for his foolishness, Nick reached the house without further incident. He knew that his jumbled thoughts were most likely a further consequence of the withdrawal from alcohol – something that he hoped the medication would help with when it had had a chance to get into his system. In darkness, he climbed the stairs, longing for the oblivion that sleep might bring and trying to put from his mind what might happen at his next session with Tessa. He would phone her to make another appointment in the morning. Regardless of what might happen, he’d need the woman’s help to quit drinking.

       CHAPTER FIVE

       Caitlin

      ‘Cait love, come in.’ Gillian stood back, and Caitlin stepped into the hall, shaking the rain from her umbrella before closing the front door. She hadn’t told Gillian what had happened, not yet. Instead, she’d broken down on the phone at the sound of her mother-in-law’s voice, and Gillian had told her immediately to come over, that she shouldn’t be alone, not tonight of all nights. Caitlin had accepted gladly, packed an overnight bag, and driven straight there. All the time the man’s words resounded in her head. David’s alive, he’d said, but who was he, and what did he know? She had to find out.

      ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t talk on the phone, Gillian …’ She stood before her mother-in-law and pulled at her gloves, wondering if she had done the right thing in coming.

      Gillian put her hand on her arm. ‘Has something happened?’

      Caitlin nodded, she couldn’t keep this to herself. She had to confide in someone. And Gillian was the mother she’d never had. They’d hit it off as soon as David had introduced them.

      ‘I got a call just before you rang. It was a man. He said that David … that he was alive. He said I’m not to try to find him … that if I did, it would be dangerous … I don’t know what to make of it. I mean, why now, why today? Whoever he is, he must know something.’

      Gillian’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Did he say who he was? Did he give you any information to go on?’

      Caitlin shook her head. ‘He hung up before I could ask him anything.’

      ‘Have you called the guards?’

      ‘No, I was going to … but then I thought about what he said. I mean, what if it is dangerous? What if David’s alive and something happens to him if we get the guards involved? I don’t know what to do … that’s why I came over … I had to tell someone, do something … I’m not even sure I should be here.’

      Caitlin took off her coat and followed Gillian into the living room where a fire burned, and a soap opera played on the television. Gillian picked up the remote control and put the TV on mute. They sat opposite each other, Caitlin on the sofa and Gillian in her armchair by the fire.

      ‘What did this man sound like?’ Gillian leaned forward, eager for information.

      Caitlin shrugged, trying to remember the voice. ‘I don’t know. His accent was neutral. Definitely СКАЧАТЬ