He switched it back on and there was a relief as the television shone its colour, then the desire to turn it off and be left with the correct feelings returned. He was nervous that his finger, a different finger this time, would leave him with satisfaction; he pressed and maintained a pressure on the button, waiting for the permission that he would grant himself, that he hoped would come, so he could remove his finger. It didn’t come, he was rolling now on the bed, fired with heat and a panic that he would never be able to release the button and gain the satisfaction required for him not to turn it on again. Then the thought that if the correct feeling didn’t happen, a terrible thing would happen to who? To whom? He was confused as he resisted the mind-squeeze that pressured him – to Jacob. Get it right. Please. He pressed it off and on again, and off and on again, each time holding the finger to relieve the curse that had now transferred to Clarissa, then after seventeen attempts, odd number is good, he took his finger off the button, and waited, until the compulsion to do it again had been satisfied. It wasn’t, then it was, after twenty-seven times.

Twenty-seven times, then, with the relief of a faint, he experienced the correct feeling in his finger. Nothing bad was going to happen to anyone, he was OK, Jacob was going to be OK, Clarissa was going to be OK, the television was off, all was right in the world.

He was wet and his sheet, as he threw it off himself, was clinging and showed dark over his body. That was an obsessive-compulsive act, and he hadn’t had them since they medicated him in the institution, but now they were back. It was all coming back.

God, to God he prayed getting out of bed, like a seven-year-old, kneeling and praying for the safety of those he loved, and for the preservation of his brain. He was praying to God to keep him sane long enough to commit an act of insanity. A murder. Did God know? Ever swore he wouldn’t tell him. And craved for half a bottle of tequila to be downed in one effective and all-consuming effort.

Ever didn’t have that long now, the ball was starting to roll; the hill was getting increasingly steep.

Chapter Twenty-four

The dawning day would bring the meeting with Bruce Wong.