To The Lighthouse
The straight road from the little town of Lydd led the police car across the completely flat and barren landscape of shingle, towards the square blocks of Dungeness nuclear power station, which sat on the horizon like two huge, grey Lego bricks.
As they raced after the red estate car, with the sirens wailing and blue lights flashing frenetically, the mounds of stones and lakes that graced what has often been referred to as 'England's only desert' passed by at breakneck speed behind the high, wire fences.
Shooting past the first turn-off, it was clear that the car wasn't heading for the power station. The two officers were relieved. They had no idea what the young woman was about to do, only that her behaviour was erratic and dangerous; the threat of a nuclear incident was not something they wanted to have to deal with!
At the next turning the red car tore off down the small lane, past the little wooden fishing cottages and straight towards Dungeness lighthouse, a thin black and white banded tube pointing at the sky.
As they squealed past the streamlined tower, the road turned to the right with the curvature of the shingle bank beyond. Ahead now was the old lighthouse – slightly fatter and completely black. This was open as a tourist attraction, although tourism was the last thing on the minds of the occupants of the two speeding vehicles.
The road ended near a pub called the Britannia, and the estate car screeched to a halt with a handbrake turn, sending a flurry of dust into the air. The police car came to a more controlled stop nearby and the crazed woman leapt from her car, leaving the door wide open, and ran towards the black lighthouse tower, carrying something wrapped in a blue blanket. Was this the baby that the neighbours had said was in serious danger?
The two police officers emerged from their car and immediately gave chase on foot.
Knocking into a couple of middle aged tourists as they stood by the door, the woman tore inside and headed straight for the stairway on her left, which wound its way deliriously upward around the gradually narrowing tower.
People viewing the items for sale in the shop, which occupied the ground floor, stared upward in amazement as the woman sprinted up the staircase. The police officers were mere seconds behind, bounding skyward two steps at a time. Neither officer had any idea how things were going to unfold, although P.C. Clarke was very nervous now that the chase was proceeding in a vertical direction.
He had never let on about his phobia of heights, initially fearing that this would prevent him from getting into the police force, and later because he had never envisaged ending up in a situation where his fear would be unmasked so obviously.
After a considerable climb, there was another floor across the tower. Beyond this, the second leg of the spiralling ascent commenced. If he could just keep his head until reaching that level, he would be OK. Ignoring a drop of thirty feet beyond the handrail was tough, and his pace began to slow as P.C. Richardson stalked ahead and onto the second part of the climb.
“You OK?” a voice echoed down.
P.C. Clarke looked up to make sure that he was out of sight from his colleague.
“I've sprained my ankle!” he yelled.
P.C. Richardson was on his own. 'This woman must be some kind of athlete,' he thought to himself, for she was getting further and further ahead of him as she climbed.
Nearing the top, the last few steps were perilously steep. P.C. Richardson climbed these with care and emerged via a small, square exit, out onto the balcony. 140 feet below him was a vast array of shingle as far as the eye could see, with the huge blocks of the nuclear power station to his left, the modern black and white striped lighthouse to his right and the sea behind him. But where was the woman?
The officer stumbled around the balcony and then, for the first time, he saw the lady he had been chasing for the last hour close-up. She had long, ginger hair and was holding the blue blanket over the edge of the balcony.
“Just let me do what I have to do,” she stated emphatically.
'Dear God, no! Please don't let go of that baby,' thought the officer.
“Easy now!” his voice translated calmly, “Think about what you're doing. We can get you help.”
The woman inched away, further around the balcony. “I am going to walk around the other side and I want you to stay here,” she stated.
Without any kind of back-up, the officer had no choice. Any kind of confrontation might lead to the little nipper going over the edge. What was her situation? Could she be a single mother who could no longer take the pressure? Or just clinically insane?
The woman disappeared out of view behind the light compartment and the officer waited in a state of paralysis.
Back below, P.C. Clarke was leaning over the balcony feeling faint. Staring at the floor so far beneath him, where the heads of people had returned to the books and gifts, he felt something he hadn't felt since the age of eleven – delirium.
One moment the floor looked as though it was a million miles beneath him, the next as though it was mere inches from his face.
How he remembered those nights laying in bed with a temperature as a child, gazing at the wall which seemed to be oppressively close one moment and vastly distant the next. Then there was the noise in his ears, like a deafening silence; totally quiet and painfully loud simultaneously. It was always as though the mind could only focus on one extreme at once, so the sensations alternated, a bit like looking at one of those illusions that looks like two faces one second and a candle-stand the next.
And then there was the strange sensation of one's hands feeling enormously heavy one moment and as small as a piece of string the next. What was it about delirium that made the mind behave so dichotomously?
Just then the policeman's radio alerted him; “Officer Clarke, we have some information about the woman.”
The P.C. turned to face the wall whilst gripping the railing tightly; “Yes sir. I am receiving.”
“The lady has stolen a valuable piece of medical equipment from a clinic in Ashford. We believe her to be in a state of delusion. We want you and Officer Richardson to recover the machine before she can destroy it, and detain the woman.”
“But sir, what about the baby?”
“The machine is wrapped up in a blue blanket. As far as we are aware she has no dependants.”
'Thank goodness,' thought the policeman, for a case of infanticide would have been only marginally less tricky than the nuclear incident they had feared when chasing the car towards the power station.
Gripping tightly to the railings the officer began to continue his ascent, with a renewed sense of determination.
The scene at the top of the lighthouse was still terse, with P.C. Richardson on the west side of the balcony and the woman at the east side. “Are you OK?” he called round.
“I just need to think,” called back the woman.
“Can I take the baby from you?”
The woman started to laugh; “This isn't a baby! This is a doctor.”
'The woman is a head-case!' thought the officer.
“What do you mean?”
The woman walked slowly back round to the policeman and then pulled off the blanket to reveal a small computer-like box; “A doctor's mind is trapped in here and I am going to set him free.”
'What the … ?'
Gathering his thoughts, the officer then stated, “Look, I have no idea what you mean, but if you throw that over the edge you are likely to kill someone.”
Just then the radio bleeped. It was Officer Clarke.
“Where the hell are you?”
“I'm on my way. The station have just called with some info...” He began to explain what his colleague now already knew - that it was not a child's life that was at risk from a 140-foot plunge but a piece of medical equipment.
“Who does it belong to?” was P.C. Richardson's response.
“Apparently it's a Doctor Greenstreet of Victoria Park Therapy Centre in Ashford,” replied P.C. Clarke.
“Our friend up here said something about a doctor. That name rings a bell for some reason – Doctor Greenstreet – I'm sure I have heard of him before.”
“Look, I'm on my way up. It's just gonna take a while because of this foot of mine.”
P.C. Richardson was unconvinced by his colleague's white lie; “OK. ASAP though.”
Then the penny dropped. The policeman had read about Dr Greenstreet and his unorthodox psychoanalysis methods in a newspaper article a few weeks ago.
Apparently, he used a machine which could allow him to experience the dreams of his patients.
There was a student called Harriet who had sought his services for winter blues. Then there was a lady called Maria who had travelled all the way down from London hoping that he could unravel her confusion about her religious beliefs. The machine had been used to assess a troubled child prodigy called Penny when conventional therapy had seemed to plunge her deeper into her delusions, and a young lady called Phoebe who thought she was having visions from the lives of people she met. And yes, there was even a guy called Bob who was feeling down because he just couldn't find a job.
The real coup for the doctor had apparently been dealing with an aging protest singer who had reached the upper echelons of the music charts with a few of his releases. The article wouldn't reveal the singer's name, and not being particularly into music, P.C. Clarke wasn't prone to speculate. Anyway, it was nothing new for a musician of stature to be drawn to such nonsensical alternative therapies.
'Bunch of saddos,' the officer had thought when reading the report, although the idea of a machine that could record dreams did intrigue him. Suddenly he broke into a smile, remembering some nutter called Tim who drove his car into a bridge over the M20, thinking that he was from another planet and that this would open some kind of portal for him to return.
The article ended by stating that the doctor had died of natural causes while wired up to the machine and that it had then been stolen mysteriously. Suddenly, saving this machine seemed to be the key to solving the whole enigma.
“Please put the machine down,” instructed the officer gently, but the woman held it out further over the balcony. The officer remonstrated; “I just want you to think about this. The item is stolen property. If you destroy it, the punishment may include a custodial sentence. Surely you must have some relatives who you don't want to be parted from?”
“I don't. My parents are dead. I just have a boyfriend called John. That's all. He is a film maker from Tenterden.”
The woman was opening up.
“And your name is...?”
“Eleanor. I was a patient at the doctor's surgery. The doctor cured me of my phobia of heights, but now he's stuck in here. I'm not joking. The papers may say that he is dead but his mind is still inside this box. He is trapped in another guy's dream. I know how this machine works.”
The officer was out of his depth. 'What a load of mumbo jumbo!' he thought silently.
“How are you so sure?” he inquired, humouring the deranged ramblings.
“The inventor of the device used me as a guinea pig to test his invention on.”
“You and this machine have quite a history then?” The officer decided to test the water; “So what was the inventor's name?”
“Vincent. Vincent Smithfield.”
She wasn't bluffing; the officer remembered that name from the article.
Then the woman added, “The machine had a malfunction and I got stuck in a dream until he took out the vital component. The thing is nobody knows what the vital component is. A doctor died while wired up to this thing, but his consciousness is inside. Seriously, he is stuck in this thing!”
“Listen. This is too much. A dead man cannot live on in a computer. Put the machine down and we'll get it returned to the surgery. Nobody gets hurt and you will save yourself a lot of bother.”
Just then the woman was startled.
A head popped through the square exit from the light chamber. It was P.C. Clarke.
'About time!' thought his colleague.
But his sudden appearance made Eleanor jump. She lost her grip of the machine, feeling it slip in her hands. In trying to regain her grip upon it, she lunged across the balcony with her feet slipping on the floor. Her grip weakened, the machine dropped, and unbalanced further, she toppled right over.
In a slow motion scene, P.C. Richardson rushed in to grab her, but it was too late. He caught her right shoe which came off in his hand as gravity took over.
In total horror, the officers watched as the metal box shrunk as it plunged towards the shingle, with the woman screaming and heading towards oblivion after it.
Back on ground level, the metal box hit the stones and seemed to splinter into shards which flew back up a few feet with the force of the impact. Components flew out and spewed across the shingle, and as they came down there was a dull thud a few feet away, where a 29-year-old woman fell flat on her back.
The doctor's mind was free and she was no more.