Pandora's Box
He looked terrified. All she could do was watch on nervously as beads of sweat ran down Alan's forehead, reclined on the black leather chair in the centre of the UCOS arena, his hands gripped so tightly on the chair that his knuckles were white, the contours of the bone exposed through the pale skin. She'd known this hypnotism thing was a bad idea from the start, but as their efforts to find new leads were growing increasingly futile, she'd agreed to give it a try. What was the worst that could happen? Well, this was probably as bad as it could get. She jumped slightly as Alan began to shout, fully immersed in the depths of his troubled subconscious, traumatised from the terrible ordeal he had suffered as a young boy.
"We really need to wake him up, he's getting distressed," the hypnotist asserted, meeting Sandra's eyes for confirmation.
"No!" Gerry interjected suddenly, his curiosity drawing him closer to the group. "Wait, wait, this is the good bit, he's about to see the man,"
"Leave him!" Brian added, leaning in to the whimpering man in the middle of the room, in the hope of distinguishing some evidence amidst the cries of terror. She hated to see Alan reduced to a petrified child, but they needed to achieve justice for him, and Daryl. It was their job, and he was their only hope of doing it properly.
His screaming suddenly increased in intensity, until he was yelling "Jesus, Jesus" over and over again, a desperate prayer which, by some miracle, had been answered for the two young boys all those years ago. The hypnotist started to bring him back, against the demands of Brian and Gerry. "No, no, wait, he's about to tell us something we don't already know!" Brian protested.
"Shut up and let her do her job, Brian." She snapped.
"Alan, count back with me," the young woman said calmly but clearly, her voice slicing through the shocking scene playing out in the victim's mind. "Ten, nine…"
"Such a load of pony," Gerry remarked, earning a classic eye roll from Sandra before they returned their attention back to Alan. "Three, two, one…" he counted, his head still relaxed back into the chair as if he were asleep. An air of suspense descended on the group as the countdown finished, yet worryingly, his eyes were still closed. Sandra noticed the flicker of concern in the hypnotist's eyes, matched by Brian. Even Gerry had gone suspiciously quiet.
Mercifully, after what felt like an age, his eyes reopened and he lifted his head up to face the team. "How'd I do?" he asked chirpily, and a collective sigh of relief passed around the colleagues. She'd already been planning the tonnes of paperwork they'd have to do if it all went awry.
"Anna?" Sandra called down the corridor, walking towards the hypnotist. She stopped, turning to face the Superintendent.
"Yes?" she replied.
"Thank you for today, it's much appreciated. I know it got a bit intense at one point, I'm sorry about that. We just want to get the best result and Alan was the key to achieving that." She apologised on behalf of the boys.
"Its fine, I understand. It's really a blessing that he didn't remember until now, it was obviously an extremely scarring experience. I've rarely seen anybody react to hypnosis in that way." The younger woman affirmed.
"Anna, can I ask you something?"
"Feel free," she smiled.
"If I had, say, a vague recollection from my childhood, something that I'm not sure really happened, would you be able to draw it out in some way? Like you did with Alan, I mean." She asked, biting her lip nervously. She'd never confided in anyone about this before, but she trusted Anna. She'd gone against the wishes of Brian and Gerry in the interests of the client; she respected her for that.
"I could try, but potentially it could be difficult if you aren't certain that it's real. Is it something serious or psychologically damaging?"
She sighed, internally debating whether to be truthful with her or not. "It could be damaging, it just depends if it actually happened in the way that I remember it. Or if it even happened at all. I was grieving for my father at the time, you see, I was fourteen years old, so I suppose I was..."
Anna held up her hand, stopping her confession. "Don't tell me any more, not here. It's something we obviously need to discuss at length. I could make you an appointment at my office if you'd like and we could take it from there?"
"That would be great. Thank you." She replied, somewhat relieved to have been spared the risk of revealing her private life in the Met building, where the walls had ears.
"Here's my card," the hypnotist rooted in her bag, handing her a blue business card with all the usual details on it. "Feel free to call me to book an appointment whenever you like."
"Thank you, Anna. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't mention this to anyone, at least not in the Met anyway. As you can probably tell, it's a personal matter."
"Of course, it's part of my job to keep everything you tell me completely confidential." The younger woman smiled. "See you soon."
"Bye," she replied, turning around to look through the pane of glass in the door to the UCOS office as Anna disappeared into the lift at the end of the corridor. She caught Jack's eye and smiled wearily at him. He frowned, concerned. He'd probably just witnessed her conversation with the hypnotist, which by all standards had been longer than usual. She had the feeling that she was about to open a can of worms equivalent to Pandora's Box.