Show of Evil

by a stern and relentless father determined that the boy follow him into the hell of the coal mines.

His mother considered Aaron's education akin to devil's play; a boy to whom the strap and the insults of his parents had done little to discourage him from a bold and persistent quest for knowledge. That quest was abetted by a sympathetic schoolteacher, Rebecca, who saw in the lad a glimmering hope that occasionally there might be resurrection from a bitter life sentence in the emotionally barren and aesthetically vitiated Kentucky hamlet, and who ultimately seduced him. Aaron was a loner, attracted to both the professions and the arts, who had wanted - as do most young people at one time or another - to be lawyer, doctor, actor, and poet - but whose dreams were constantly thwarted by everyone except his mentor, Rebecca.

And Woodward talked about the schoolteacher who appeared to be Crikside's only beacon, a lighthouse of lore and wisdom in an otherwise bleak and tortured place; a woman who threatened the bigotry of their narrow and obdurate heritage, a notion possibly vindicated by Rebecca's 'education' of Aaron Stampler. And finally he talked about the sexual liberation of Aaron Stampler, first by Rebecca, then later in a perverse and tormenting way by the paedophile, Bishop Rushman.

'It's easy to understand how this could have happened, considering what we know about Aaron's childhood and teen years. The simplified assumption was that Aaron created Roy to assume the guilt and responsibility for acts that Aaron couldn't perform himself. He transferred his guilt to Roy. As I said, this is an oversimplification of a very complex problem. We're dealing with the human mind, remember. The science isn't as obvious as DNA or fingerprints, which are unequivocal.'

'Look, Dr Woodward, I wasn't in any way demeaning your -'

'I understand that. I just want you to understand that work with him isn't a twice-a-week gabfest. This young man has dominated my professional life. I'm not complaining, it has also been most rewarding. But just achieving transference with him took three years.'

'Transference?' Vail said.

'A form of trust. When it works, the patient comes to regard the analyst as a figure from the past, a parent or a mentor, somebody they relate to. Trust is transferred from the mentor to the therapist.'

'You just said Aaron transferred his guilt to Roy. Is this the same kind of thing?'

'Yes. He simply created his own avenger. There is a downside, there always is. It creates a subconscious fear that old injuries and insults will be repeated - what we call re-experiencing. Fear of reliving pain from children, friends, husband, wives, just about anybody.'

'So all the pain is transferred from past to present?'

'Everything. Pain, anger frustration, unreasonable expectations. But it is important because it permits us to make connections between the past and the present. Drugs can ease the fear. And, of course, at times the pain.'

'What's the ultimate objective, Doctor? What did you call it, the baseline?'

'Free association. Encouraging the subject to concentrate on inner experiences… thoughts, fantasies, feelings, pain. Hopefully creating an atmosphere in which the subject will say absolutely everything that comes to mind without fear of being censored or judged.'

'How does that help you?' Vail said.

'Well, what you're getting is their mental topography, like a roadmap to their secrets. They remember things from the deep past - traumatic events, painful encounters - very clearly, re-experience the fears and feelings that go with them. And, we hope, learn to accept them. Doesn't always happen, of course. Ours is not a perfect science like mathematics, where two and two always equals four. No, no, sometimes when dealing with the human mind two and two equals eight or twelve...'

'Or one?'

'Or one - or a half. In Aaron's case, remembering some of the horrible acts committed by Roy and learning to deal with the knowledge was the product of re-experiencing and free association.'

'So you have made progress?'

Woodward stopped, knocked the dead embers from his pipe into a trash barrel, and stuffed the pipe in his cardigan pocket. 'I would say so,' he said. 'I want you to meet someone. His name is Raymond Vulpes.'

'Who's Raymond Vulpes?'

'The only other person alive who knows - as I do - every intimate detail of the lives of Aaron and Roy.'

They walked across the yard to what was known as MaxSec. The first