Dream World (10 page)

Replacing the postcard, Kate made her way out of the shop and back into the main body of the church. She was just contemplating her next move when she heard a set of doors open at the far end of the building. Crouching down between two pews, so as not to be seen, she waited and watched to see if she could spy a glimpse of whoever it was who had entered the church. Whoever it was was breathing heavily and dragging their feet, as if they were injured in someway. Avoiding the main aisle, the injured party slunk off into one of the small chapels in order to hide.

By this time, Kate's heart was pounding in her chest, her feelings a mixture of intrigue and fear. It was the former that proved overwhelming. She simply had to know who it was who had entered the church, so she cautiously made her way towards the Lady Chapel where the person had taken refuge. Her prudence proved unnecessary. As she approached the figure from behind, it quickly became apparent that he was in no fit state to worry about anyone other than himself as he appeared to be bleeding. He was slumped down on his knees in front of a small altar, which was surrounded by candle stands. As Kate watched he removed one of the candles from the box nearest to him, lit it and offered up a silent prayer. Raising his face heavenwards, Kate saw his features in profile and realised who it was.

‘Don't be afraid,' Dexter said.

‘I'm not,' she replied. Nevertheless, she approached him warily.

‘Good, because it's not me you have to worry about,' he explained.

Kate caught her breath.

‘You've been shot!' she exclaimed, before dropping to her knees in order to take a look at the wound, which was worse than she had initially anticipated.

‘Don't worry, I'll be fine.'

‘But...' she said.

He laughed, ironically. ‘After all, it's only a dream.'

‘Who did this to you?' she asked.

‘Your old friend, Comrade Nadia.'

‘Why?'

‘Long story.'

‘Try me,' she said.

Dexter grimaced and keeled over. Taking him in her arms, she tried to haul him to his feet. ‘Dream or no dream, we need to get you to a hospital.'

‘No,' he said. ‘We can't leave the church.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because we're safe here, they can't touch us. It's sanctuary.'

‘Dexter, you're not making any sense. Look, this is my dream, I can control it, I can get you out of here.'

‘Just like you controlled the scenario back at the café in Red Square?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Don't try and kid yourself. You weren't in control back then, were you?'

‘I admit it felt odd for a while, but...'

‘It's not the only time, is it?' he pressed.

‘What are you saying?'

‘They're accessing your dreams, Kate. They're manipulating them, taking charge of aspects of them.'

‘Nonsense,' she said

‘Please,' he said. ‘You've got to believe me.'

‘It's your wound,' she insisted. ‘You're becoming delusional. Look, I tell you what, I'll do something to demonstrate that I'm still in command.'

‘What, like conjure up a blue door.'

Determined to prove him wrong, she focussed upon producing a blue door. Concentrating all her efforts she managed to summon one into existence, just to the side of the candle stand.

‘There,' she said triumphantly. ‘I told you I was in charge.'

Before Dexter had the chance to respond an all too familiar voice said, ‘Of course you are.'

Kate and Dexter turned to find Nadia and the two waiters standing behind them.

‘What are you doing inside here?' Dexter said. ‘There are rules, remember?'

Nadia smiled, coldly. ‘There might have been in early versions of the programme, but it's been upgraded since your time.'

Feeling the need to try and protect Dexter, Kate stood up and faced down her icy Russian nemesis. ‘I'm warning you, get out of here.'

‘Or else what?' Nadia scoffed. ‘Unless you want a taste of the same medicine.'

To back up the threat, Nadia withdrew the Walther from her right coat pocket.

‘Get out of here, Kate,' Dexter warned.

‘No chance. There's no way I'm leaving you here with this monster.'

Nadia raised her right eyebrow. ‘I'd be careful with the compliments if I were you, Babushka. I have a long memory.'

‘Please,' Dexter urged her.

‘This isn't over,' Kate told him. ‘I'll come back to you, I'll find you.'

‘Yes, alright, but go now so you can fight on another day.'

Kate took a step towards the blue door. Nadia couldn't resist a parting taunt. ‘That's it, run like the coward you are.'

Through gritted teeth, Kate responded, ‘Well meet again, Comrade.'

‘I doubt that very much,' Nadia replied

‘Don't count on it,' Kate retorted, determined not to let Nadia get the final word. With a last glance in Dexter's direction, Kate blew him a kiss, then stepped through the blue door.

Reality

Kate awoke to find Richard at her side. He was in the process of removing the drip from her arm.

‘Are you alright?' he asked.

‘Yes, why?' she replied, warily.

‘I've never seen anyone who has used the centre experience such agitated dreams. You looked like you were having a nightmare.'

‘How could you tell?

‘The pads that attach to your head don't just help to stimulate and enhance your experience, they also allow us to monitor and observe you, to make sure that nothing untoward is going on inside there.' Richard tapped Kate's head.

She flinched away from his hand, uncomfortable with the overly familiar gesture. ‘I never knew that,' she said. ‘I'm not sure I'd have signed up for the experience in the first place if I had.'

‘Easy, calm down,' he said, trying his best to re-assure her.

Kate felt far from calm, but she controlled her rising temper. The last thing she wanted to do at that point was to arouse his suspicions. She knew that would only lead to him asking more awkward questions.

‘So, what were you dreaming about?' he asked.

‘This and that,' she replied, deliberately keeping her answer as vague as possible.

‘Would that be a similar ‘this and that' to what we got up to in the hotel room in Sydney?'

‘What you got up to,' she corrected him.

Ignoring the correction, Richard continued to press her. ‘I'd love to take a trip with you again sometime. You've got quite a sub-conscious, if you don't mind me saying, Miss Phillips.'

‘Thanks for the proposal. I'll think about it.'

‘It's only fair to warn you, advanced bookings are increasing all the time. It'd be a great pity if it reached the point where I wasn't able to squeeze you in.'

‘Are you suggesting that if I don't agree to your request I won't be able to book a slot in future?'

‘Kate. Kate. You've got me all wrong. That would be blackmail. I don't play those kinds of games. I'd just like to show you the true potential of your dreams, that's all. And,' he added, ‘make sure that you don't experience anymore unpleasant nightmares.'

‘Don't worry about that,' she told him as she gathered her things. ‘I had a lovely time, thank you.'

Kate then bade him goodnight and left the centre.

‘Did you indeed,' Richard said to the empty room when she had gone. As he reflected on the conversation he crossed the dream chamber and plugged one of the pads into a socket over on the far wall. He switched on the monitor above the bed on which she had slept and muttered, ‘Right, Ms Phillips, let's see what Nadia has to say about your dream.'

Richard wasn't the only one who was thinking about Nadia Petrova. As she crossed the car park Kate was already planning how to take her revenge on the feisty Russian temptress who, she surmised, was an insubordinate element of her sub-conscious. That said, Nadia wasn't the sole focus of her attention. Far from it. Pulling out of the car park Kate analysed all of the dreams she had experienced that night in the hope of making some kind of sense of them. What concerned her most was that apart from the Clive and Gary dream - which she had enjoyed immensely - she hadn't felt fully in control of any of the other scenarios. Could she simply put this down to her mind playing tricks on her? After all, she had suffered no real harm and even found aspects of the dangerous situations she had experienced quite thrilling. She was rather proud of the way she had stood up to Nadia in her final dream of the night, although she wished she had come out with a better parting quip. She would have to work on her one liners. They weren't quite James Bond calibre as yet.

Pulling up at a set off traffic lights Kate was in half a mind to call in on Sylvia when she heard someone cough. She froze. It was every woman's nightmare scenario. There was someone in the car with her. The lights changed to green. Kate barely noticed. The car at her rear tooted angrily. Glancing at the car in her rear view mirror she wondered if she could somehow gesture to the impatient driver and get him to help her. The trouble was, having automatically locked the doors on entering her car, exiting her vehicle without alerting the attention of her stowaway passenger wouldn't prove easy. Reaching for her keys, Kate pressed the button she hoped was the locking release. The locks clicked loudly causing her to flinch and the person hiding in the rear of her car to draw a deep breath.

Honking loudly for a second time, the car at Kate's rear pulled up beside her. She glanced across at the driver. He looked quite a big chap. He mouthed an angry obscenity as Kate's hand closed on the driver's side door handle. She pushed. Nothing happened. The car beside her pulled away. Kate realised that she must have inadvertently pressed the button that locked the doors, and the noise she had heard was simply the locking mechanism in operation.

‘Don't worry,' a voice said. ‘I'm not going to hurt you.'

Through the fog of fear a part of Kate's mind remained alert enough to recognise the voice. That wasn't her main concern though. Her main concern was escape. Her second attempt at pressing the correct button on her keys proved successful. The locking mechanism popped and she threw the driver's side door open.

‘Please,' the voice urged. ‘Help me.'

Kate tore off her seat belt and was about to bolt when a thought crossed her mind. If whoever it was had meant her any harm, surely he would have already acted by now? Ninety nine point nine per cent of her instinct told her to run, but, much to her own annoyance, the tiny fraction that disagreed overruled her and forced her to turn around. She discovered Dexter lying across the back footwells of her vehicle. He looked pale and drawn and in pain. His right hand was clutching his stomach. Blood was seeping through his fingers from a wound that looked to be in a similar place to where he had been shot in her dream. She shook her head, trying to disavow the similarity.

‘This isn't happening,' she told herself. ‘Come on, Kate, snap out of it, girl.'

‘It is happening,' he contradicted her. ‘And you need to deal with it.'

‘Alright,' she barked, partially annoyed at herself, partially at Dexter. ‘I'll take you to the general hospital. They can look after you there.'

‘I've told you before, no hospitals.'

Kate froze. How could he possibly know that was what his dream counterpart had said to her not less than an hour ago?

‘If you take me back to your place, I promise I'll try and explain,' he said.

She hesitated.

‘If you don't,' Dexter gasped, ‘he wins.'

‘Who?'

‘Richard.'

‘How? Wins what? I don't understand.' It was too late though, Dexter was no longer in any fit state to explain; he had lost consciousness. Kate stared at herself in the rear view mirror. Admonishing herself she said, ‘You had better be right about this, girl.'

As she yanked her car door shut a police car drew level with her. The officer nearest to her gestured for her to lower her window. Kate did so.

‘Is there a problem, Miss?' he asked.

‘No Officer.'

‘It's just that you're on CCTV here and it shows that you've sat through half a dozen changes of lights.'

‘I'm really sorry,' her mind raced to try and come up with a feasible explanation and one which would also prevent the police officer from taking matters any further, ‘only I received an emergency phone call from a friend of mine.'

‘Anything we can help with?'

‘No, it's fine, thank you. Everything's under control.'

‘OK,' the policeman said, then raised his window and indicated for his colleague to drive off.

The police car pulled away so slowly when Kate drove off she couldn't help but tail them given the speed they were going. At the next crossroads, when the police car turned along the road that Kate needed to go, she refrained from following them. Though continuing straight on took her a couple of miles out of the way, the last thing she wanted was for them to see where she lived, just in case they opted to pursue their line of enquiry further.

Pulling up in her driveway, ten minutes later, Kate checked around to make sure none of her neighbours were curtain twitching, then she helped Dexter out of the car. Thankfully, he had regained consciousness, which made the task much easier. They stumbled into the front hall then she slammed the door shut behind them. Slowly, painfully, she helped him up the stairs and into the bathroom. It was the best place to tend to his injury. As he peeled off his top and T-shirt she filled the sink with warm water and broke out what little medication she had. The small pile of plasters, bandages, cotton wool, ibuprofen, sports gel and Savlon didn't amount to much. Trying her best to recall what they had told her on the first aid course she had attended back at College she dampened a cotton wool ball, instructed him to sit on the side of the bath and started to clean his wound.

She grimaced as she tended to him. She had never been very good with blood. The injury was a strange one. It was as if something had torn a two inch long strip out of his left flank. Could it have been caused by a bullet? Mercifully, the wound was only surface deep. As soon as she had finished cleaning him up she was going to demand an explanation.

‘Don't worry,' he said, ‘I'll tell you everything.'

His comment stopped her in her tracks. ‘Stop doing that.'

‘What?'

‘Reading my mind,' she said. ‘It's bad enough when you do it in my dreams, but anticipating what I'm thinking in the real world is just plain spooky.'

‘Right. Sorry.'

‘And keep still,' she said.

‘Sorry.'

‘And stop saying sorry.'

‘Sor...'

Kate glared at him. Dexter broke into a weak smile. ‘Only kidding.'

She took it as a sign that he couldn't be that badly injured if he was able to crack bad jokes. Besides the main injury, Dexter was covered in minor cuts and grazes and there was a rather nasty large swelling just above his left ear, which she guessed was the injury that had caused him to pass out. As she fingered it, he flinched.

‘Sorry,' she said.

‘Don't you start.'

She threw the used cotton wool balls into the bin. ‘Right, get your trousers off.'

‘But I don't know you that well,' he protested.

‘I need to take a look at your legs.'

‘I'm not that kind of guy,' he insisted.

Kate was trying her best not to laugh, but it wasn't easy in the face of his flippancy. Doing her best to look annoyed with him she put her hands on her hips, cocked her head to one side and said, ‘Are you going to take them off, mister, are am I going to have to do it for you?'

‘Did we get up to something that I should know about in those dreams of yours?'

‘No,' she denied, a touch too quickly to sound entirely convincing.

‘It's just that you're very forward,' he said.

‘I'm trying to play nurse here,' she countered.

‘So you like a bit of role play then?'

‘Can you be serious for a minute.'

‘Do I have to be?'

Kate folded her arms. ‘I can leave the room if it'll make it easier for you.'

‘No, it's OK, I'll strip.'

As he removed his trousers Kate couldn't help but note that his physique was just as impressive as that of his dream counterpart. It wasn't the only thing she noted. His legs were covered in large, ugly bruises.

‘God, Dexter, what did they do to you?'

‘Most of these are from rugby,' he said.

‘Honestly?'

‘The guys I was recently up against play a rough game.'

Suspecting he wasn't going to give her a straight answer she began to run the bath.

‘What's with the cold water?' he asked.

‘It'll help bring out the bruises,' she explained.

‘Call me old fashioned, but I prefer hot.'

‘If you play sport you should know that ice baths help the body to recover quicker after physical exercise.'

‘Whatever you say, nurse Phillips,' although he didn't sound overly convinced.

‘I'll just pop downstairs and see if we've got anything in the ice box.'

‘Great.'

‘Then you can... you know.'

‘I know.'

They both paused and stared at the cold water filling the bath, for want of something better to do.

‘Right, I'll leave you to it,' she said.

She was already half way out of the door when he said, ‘Hey, Kate.'

‘Yes?' she said, popping her head back into the bathroom.

‘Thank you.'

‘You're welcome.'

‘No, seriously, I mean it. Thanks.'

She mumbled an incoherent reply before closing the door and hastening downstairs. It was all very well exchanging a bit of banter with a semi-naked man in her bathroom, what she did not need was for the conversation to turn serious. Who knew where that might lead.

There was plenty of ice in the freezer. Before running it up to the bathroom though, Kate put the kettle on. She needed a moment or two in which to pause and think. Her heart hadn't stopped racing since she had discovered Dexter in the back of her car. The longer she considered matters the more concerned she became. Exactly what did she know about this chap who she had invited into her home? Just because she had spent some time with his dream alter ego, that was hardly the sound basis for a trusting relationship. And those injuries he had sustained. Clearly they were the result of some kind of violent act. What if Dexter wasn't the innocent party he made himself out to be? What if he was the aggressor and his bruises were the result of someone having successfully fought him off?

Her mind raced through half a dozen more ‘what if' scenarios, none of them pleasant. Only when the kettle came to the boil and automatically clicked off did she snap out of it. She upbraided herself. How foolish she had been not to let the police handle the situation when the perfect opportunity had presented itself back at the traffic lights. Glancing at the phone that hung on the wall next to the refrigerator she thought about calling them.