‘See what’s happening,’ Lasalle told her.
Kelly hurried out into the corridor and saw that, about thirty yards further down, there were four or five people standing outside one of the doors. A tall man with blond hair was banging on it, twisting the handle impotentiy. He put
his shoulder to it as he heard another scream from inside.
‘Joubert, listen to me,’ said Lasalle. ‘I’m going to begin counting. Five …’
‘There’s something happening,’ Kelly told him.
‘Four …’
The tall blond man was taking a step back to gain more impetus as he tried to shoulder charge the door of the other room.
‘Three …’
Joubert stirred slightly.
‘Two …”
Down the corridor, the blond man gritted his teeth and prepared for one final assault on the locked door.
‘One …’
Joubert opened his eyes and blinked myopically.
He too looked round as he heard the shriek of splintering wood. The blond man crashed into the door, nearly ripping it from its hinges. It slammed back against the wall and he stumbled into the room, followed by the others who had waited.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Jouberl, pulling the electrodes from his head.
Kelly walked back into the room, a look of concern on her face. She switched off the EEG and pulled the read-out clear.
‘What’s going on?’ Joubert demanded, getting to his feet. He crossed to the door and looked out in time to see the blond man supporting a dusky skinned girl in jeans and a red top from a room further down the corridor. Even from where he stood, Joubert could see that her top was torn, part of one breast exposed. The girl was bleeding from a gash on her bottom lip and there were several angry red marks around her throat.
Lasalle and Kelly joined him in the corridor as the others approached them.
‘What happened?’ asked Lasalle.
‘Danielle was attacked,’ the blond man told him.
‘Who by?’ Lasalle wanted to know.
As he spoke, the dark-skinned girl lifted her head, brushing her auburn hair from her eyes. She looked at Joubert and screamed, one accusing finger pointing at him. With her other hand she touched her throat.
The girl babbled something in French which Kelly did not understand. She asked Lasalie to translate.
‘She said that it was Joubert who attacked her,’ the Frenchman said.
‘That’s impossible,’ Joubert snorted, indignantly. ‘Anyway, why would I do such a thing?’ He looked at Danielle. ‘She’s hysterical.’
‘Well,’ said the blond man. ‘Someone attacked her. She didn’t make these marks herself.’ He indicated the angry welts on the girl’s neck. ‘But I don’t see how he got out. The door was locked from the inside.’
Lasalle and Kelly exchanged puzzled glances as the little procession moved past them, heading for the infirmary on the second floor. Danielle looked around, her eyes filled with fear as she gazed at Joubert.
‘How could I have attached her?’ he said, irritably, walking back into the room and sitting on the couch.
Kelly and Lasalle followed him.
‘Can you remember anything of the last five or ten minutes?’ Lasalle asked him.
Joubert shook his head, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
Kelly was the first to spot it.
‘Joubert,’ she said, quietly. ‘Look at your nails.’
Beneath the finger nails of both hands were numerous tiny pieces of red cloth.
Exactly the same colour as the blouse worn by Danielle Bouchard. There were also several auburn hairs.
‘Astral travel.’
Kelly’s words echoed around the laboratory.
She looked at the pieces of cloth and hair which Joubert had scraped from beneath his fingernails and deposited in a Petri dish.
‘You said you felt cold, just before it all began to happen,’ she continued.
‘That feeling of coldness is usually associated with Astral projection.’
‘An Out of the Body Experience?’ said Joubert, incredulously.
‘Danielle Bouchard said she was attacked by you. I think she was right. You described her, you described how you tried to strangle her.’ She held up the EEG read-out. ‘There was a tremendous amount of activity in the occipital area of your brain at that time. That’s exactly what happened with Maurice Grant.’
‘But it isn’t usual for the Astral body, once projected, to appear in tangible form,’ Joubert countered. ‘Danielle Bouchard doesn’t just say she saw me, she says I touched her. Injured her.’
‘Have you ever felt any feelings of anger or antagonism towards her?’ Kelly asked.
‘Not that I’ve been aware of,’ Joubert told her.
‘But, subconsciously, you may harbour some feelings such as those, for her.
The hypnosis released those feelings, just as the drugs unlocked the violent side of Maurice Grant.’
‘I don’t understand what this has to do with the Astral body,’ Lasalle interjected.
‘The EEG read-outs seem to point to the fact that the area which controls the subconscious is housed in the occipital lobe,’ Kelly said. ‘The Astral body is controlled by the subconscious. It functions independently of the rest of the mind. That hidden area we’ve been looking for, this is it.’ She jabbed the read-out with her index finger, indicating the fifth line.
‘The subconscious mind controls the Astral body,’ Joubert repeated, quietly.
‘It looks that way,’ Kelly said. ‘You performed an act, while in the Astral state, which you could not have carried out while conscious.’
‘Are you saying that the Astral body is the evil side of man?1 said Lasalle.
‘The violent, cruel part of us.’
‘It’s possible. And hypnosis or drugs can release that other identity,’ she told him.
‘The other identity knows nothing of right or wrong,’ Joubert said. ‘It’s identical in appearance but not hampered by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality. A being which is completely free of the ethical restraints imposed upon it by society.’
Kelly caught the slight gleam in his eye.
‘The Mr Hyde in all of us,’ he said.
‘What?’ Lasalle asked, puzzled.
‘Jekyll and Hyde. One side good, one side evil. The conscious mind is Jekyll, the unconscious is Hyde only it may be possible for that evil side to function independently of its host.’
‘Think how this discovery will help the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental disorders,’ Kelly said.
‘But no one is to know of it yet,’ Joubert snapped.
‘Why?’ Lasalle wanted to know. ‘It is important, as Kelly says. People …’
Joubert cut him short.
‘It’s too early to reveal our findings,’ he rasped.
There was a long silence, finally broken by Lasalle.
‘Kelly,’ he began. ‘How do we know that everyone, every man, woman and child, doesn’t possess this inner force of evil?’
‘I think it’s safe to assume they do,’ she said, cryptically. ‘Only as far as we know, it can only be released by using drugs or hypnosis.’
‘As far as we know,’ he repeated, his words hanging ominously in the air.
Kelly looked at the dish full of hair and fabric and shuddered.
The clock on the wall above him struck one and Lasalle sat back, rubbing his eyes. He checked the time against his own watch and yawned.
He’d been hard at work since seven o’clock that evening, since returning from the Metapsychic Centre. Before him on the polished wood desk lay a 6000 word article which he had been slaving over for the past six hours. He’d stopped only once for a cup of coffee and a sandwich at about 9.30 but most of the sandwich lay uneaten on the plate beside the typewriter. He looked up and found himself caught in the gaze of a woman with flowing blonde hair whose