The number 150
He left his office and turned of the lights, he was high on adrenaline and his stomach did a few nervous somersaults. In a few minutes he would be face to face with Johnny Kray and he would end this case before it could get worse, he flipped the light switch again.
He really had to go, with a click the bulb buzzed and light flared up again. On or off? He flipped the switch a couple of times and once he had started he wasn't able to stop. Five, six, seven, eight. He remembered that there had been a hundred-and-fifty yellow pins when he'd counted them.
On and off. He couldn't go yet, panic was rising in his throat, he had to flip the switch again or the whole evening would end in disaster. Twenty-one, twenty-two.
It seemed as if his fingers had started their own life, he already had one foot outside the door but his fingertips were still playing with the switch, on and off, twenty-eight and twenty-nine.
He really had to go now, without him this case would never draw to a close, just once more to calm down, to secure a satisfying end to the night. On, off, on, off, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two.
He growled in frustration, he was powerless, a slave to his own mind that forced him to press the switch exactly hundred-and-fifty time, as many times as he had counted pins in the afternoon. The light in the small office was still flashing.
He tried to control himself, tried to snap out of this crazy notion, but his brain wouldn't allow it. He just couldn't get calm, but it would be better if he flicked the switch. Fifty-six, fifty-seven. On, off.
Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. He cursed aloud, something he rarely did, when his fingers wouldn't obey the command they were given. Light and dark alternated each other at top speed.
If he didn't do something right now he would never arrive at the bar where they were supposed to meet. On and off.
On an impulse he ran back to the desk, tearing himself from the cursed light-switch, and grabbed the first thing he could reach; the wooden model of the foot.
The switch offended him by just being there and he attacked it with a primitive instinct. An instinct to keep it together. To survive.
Sixty-six, sixty-seven. The wood hit the plastic with a loud thud and he struck at it again, over and over until the thing came loose from the wall.
He sighed, relieved that it was finally over and breathed. In and out, sucking the precious air into his lungs, in and out. Eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six.
Now all he had to do was catch the Krays and it would be over. Just a few more hours Joe, a few more hours and you'll have proven that you are a great detective indeed. An Abberline.
He walked towards the door, counting his steps. Hundred, hundred-and-one, hundred-and-two.