“And the president of Bulgaria?” suggested Jamie.
Isabel frowned. “I suspect that he has a lot of friends,” she said. “So I suspect that we’d get there within six links.”
“He has a lot of friends?” asked Eddie. “How do you know?”
Isabel shrugged her shoulders. Eddie could be very literal. “In order to become president of anywhere, even Bulgaria, you have to have friends. You have to know lots of people and cultivate them. He’ll be a networker, the president of Bulgaria. A big networker.”
She looked to Jamie for support, but he was looking at Eddie. The president of Bulgaria was not getting the attention he deserved. “Go on, Eddie,” said Jamie. “Hypnotise me. I’m ready. What do I have to do?”
“The president of Bulgaria,” Isabel said. “Now let’s think. I know Malcolm Rifkind, and he used to be the foreign secretary. So, he may…”
“Do I just sit here?” asked Jamie. “Do we need to turn the lights off?”
Eddie shook his head. They were sitting at the kitchen table, where casual meals were taken, and the lighting was low anyway. “It’s best not to be distracted,” he said. “That’s why it’s sometimes a good idea to turn down the lights. But it’s not very bright in here.” He stood up and moved round the table to sit down on the chair next to Jamie’s. “I’m going to sit here. You turn round a bit, so that you’re looking at me.”
Isabel brought Jamie’s cup of coffee over and put it on the table beside him. “Are you going to drink this before you go under, or afterwards?”
He smiled, but said nothing, leaving the coffee untouched. She went back to her seat.
Eddie had fixed his gaze on Jamie. He leaned forward very slightly. “I want you to listen to my voice. Just listen. Hear nothing else. All right?”
Jamie nodded.
“And as you listen to me, you’re going to feel yourself getting drowsier and drowsier. Your eyelids will be getting heavier, like lead. That’s it. And all the tension is going out of you. Flowing away. You can feel it going down your arms and out your fingertips—draining away like water. That’s right. Don’t struggle against it.”
Eddie continued in this vein for a further five minutes. Jamie remained still, and Eddie did not take his eyes off him as he talked. If Isabel had looked at Jamie, she would have seen that a smile played about his lips; it was almost imperceptible, but a sign of what he was thinking. Yet she did not see this, because her own eyes were firmly closed. She was breathing deeply.
Jamie suddenly turned his head and looked at Isabel. He signalled to Eddie, who stopped what he was saying and followed Jamie’s gaze. Eddie was silent for a few moments. Then: “Isabel. I’m going to ask you to do something. Afterwards, I’m going to snap my fingers and when I do that you’ll wake up. Do you understand?”
Isabel did not open her eyes, but she moved her head slightly to indicate assent.
“Right,” said Eddie, winking at Jamie. “Now when I tell you to open your eyes, you’ll see somebody come into the room. This is a person you really, really want to see. Somebody you know well and you want to see again. They’ll come in just to say hallo and then they’ll go out again. But you’ll tell us who it is. All right?”
Again, Isabel nodded.
“So,” said Eddie. “The door’s opening. And your eyes too.”
Isabel’s expression left no doubt that she was looking at somebody. Here was surprise, astonishment perhaps, and then an anguished cry:
Eddie rose to his feet. He snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. Then he snapped them again, more loudly this time. Isabel’s head turned sharply.
Jamie leaned across the table and took her hand. “Are you all right?”
Isabel looked about her. “Of course I’m all right. Eddie, weren’t you going to…”
“No,” said Eddie. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing anxiously at Jamie, as if for reassurance.
“Some other time,” said Jamie. “Not now.” He picked up his small cup of espresso and drained it.
“I should be going home,” said Eddie awkwardly.
He said good-bye to Isabel quickly and Jamie showed him to the door. Then, returning to the kitchen, Jamie found Isabel facing him.
She looked bemused. “Something happened, didn’t it?”
He looked down at the floor. He felt embarrassed to speak about it, but he could hardly refuse to answer her question. “He was trying to hypnotise me, but you somehow got in the way. You went under,” he said. “Like that. I remained wide awake, but you…It was very quick. I wondered whether to stop it, but I thought it might be risky.”
She gasped. “I went under?”
“Yes. You must be very…what do they say? Susceptible?”
“And what happened?”
He looked embarrassed, and she caught her breath. “Do you really want to know?”
This, she thought, is how a drunk must feel when he wakes up the next morning and has no recollection of the night before. What did I do? She felt instinctively for her clothing; it was still there. And surely Jamie would not have allowed anything untoward to happen; he would have stopped her from disgracing herself.
“You saw John Liamor,” he said quietly. “You saw him come into the room and you cried out to him.” He could tell that she was aghast. “No, you didn’t say very much. You just shouted out his name and told him not to go. That was all. Then Eddie clicked his fingers and you came out of it. Nothing more than that.”
