to read is a figment of someone else's imagination, that no matter how scary the story you'restarting from the premise that it's not true, that it can't be real. Maybe that would put you at ease, if you knew for a fact that it never happened, that I imagined it or made it up. OK, that's how I'll startit then. Once upon a time it was a dark and stormy night.So who am I? My name's Jamie Beaverbrook, and I'll be forty-six years old next month.Maybe. The desk I'm sitting at is considerably older than I am and it's in better condition. It's oneof those big, military looking things with brass handles and legs as thick as a ship's mast. The desk is in front of a large picture window that overlooks the ocean. The chair is what they call acaptain's chair, a thick, padded leather seat with a curved back that comes up to about my kidneys.It's on wheels so I can scoot it from side to side. When I decided to use the room as a study I putthe desk facing away from the window, towards the door, so that when I was working I wouldn't bedistracted by the view. It's a hell of a view, a view you could die for the real estate agent told me,and she was right, but with both fingers of the clock pointing directly up there isn't much to see justnow.There's a computer on the desk, a Toshiba laptop with a hard disc and an orange screen. On thefar left is a swan-necked brass lamp which illuminates the desktop in a pale yellow light. Everynow and then there's a flash of white behind me, throwing my shadow across the desk and fillingthe study with a stark brightness like the flashgun of a camera and it's followed a few seconds laterby the distant rumble of rolling thunder that I can feel deep down in my stomach. I used to know away of calculating the distance of a storm, something to do with the difference between the speedof light and the speed of sound. You count the number of seconds that elapse between the lightningand the thunder and then divide by something. Seven. Or six. Whatever, it's been a long timesince I cared how far away a storm was, but I still count the seconds. Habit, I suppose. Or instinct.There's a bottle of whisky on the desk, half full, or half empty, depending on your point of view.Next to it is a crystal tumbler, and that's half empty, too. In front of the glass is a small bottle of tablets, capsules actually, red and green. The cap on the bottle is one of those child-proof ones, youhave to push it and turn it at the same time. There's a seal on it too, and it hasn't been broken. Yet.In my hands is an envelope, a large one. It's sealed. I sealed it, almost ten years ago, and acrossthe flap is my signature. Who says doctors have unreadable writing? Yeah, I'm a doctor. Apsychologist, really. A criminal psychologist. If you need proof, my diplomas and stuff are on thewall to my right, next to the bookcase. Proof, that's what's in the envelope, or at least it was tenyears ago when I sealed it, signed it, and placed it in a safety deposit box in the custody of a bank on Washington Boulevard. I retrieved it this afternoon, half an hour before the bank was due toclose.Lightning flashes and almost immediately afterwards the windows shudder and there's adeafening crash that makes me jump and I spill some of the whisky as I raise the tumbler to mymouth. My hands are shaking, partly because of the storm but mainly because of what's in theenvelope. It goes quiet then, an unearthly silence, as the eye of the storm passes over the house, thepressure so intense that I can feel my ears pop and I swallow hard. I put down the empty tumblerand refill it, and then slit open the envelope with a paper knife in the shape of a miniature Spanishsword. The air is thick, too thick to breath, and my skull feels as if it's going to burst like an over-ripe watermelon. I look at the clock on the wall and it looks as if it has stopped, as if I've beentrapped forever at this single moment of time, like an insect in amber, then there's a flash asmillions of volts discharges itself from the clouds and the spell is broken and the second hand ticksagain.
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