We spent a night in Higher Marksby, the town a couple of miles away from Foxley, staying at a cheap and cheerful pub called ‘The Crown And Cushion’, which didn’t have any violent objections to me and Misty sharing a room. We would have stayed out in the van, but the night was bitterly cold, with a hard frost everywhere. By contrast daytime was like Spring. As we drove up into East Anglia, we even saw the astonishing sight of the oil seed rape fields bursting out into their ghastly yellow flower … at the beginning of February! The churchyard at Foxley was awash with crocuses and daffodils.
I wish I had more to say about Foxley, but there is very little, except that I hated it. It’s the kind of place where you feel deeply uncomfortable the entire time you’re there. I felt extremely tense, and was glad when we left. Robbie showed us the entrances to the underground tunnels which burrowed all under the village, but neither he nor Jason, nor me or Misty felt like lingering there. It was as if we were being watched by dozens of pairs of eyes all at once. The village was extremely quiet. Very little traffic noise, just occasionally you’d get the sound of the deer rubbing their antlers against fences and trees, and the sound of the shooters out in the fields. I felt we had achieved very little by going there, except that I guess it had given us a short break from the norm.
Part of the problem was that the trip felt overshadowed by everything else that was going on. Bird flu breaking out in Suffolk, Tony Blair being quizzed by the cops AGAIN, and the dire warnings about global warming, which we were seeing all around us on that trip. Plus I became more and more convinced that the answer to all the mysteries we had encountered recently lay in the present, not the past, in Shinglesea Beach, not Foxley. Seeing that isolated village, sitting at the top of its hill, I could see why Jeannette’s poltergeist outbreak had gripped everybody the way it had, but I knew that already, from what Robbie had told me.
Over dinner on the Saturday evening (we were wedged into a tiny little restaurant area in the corner of the main bar) we enjoyed ourselves bitching about Henry instead, and what a complete tosser and a charlatan the man is. I said that the bird flu outbreak would send him into overdrive again, and he’d probably go around predicting the end of the world once more.
“He told me recently that the number 23 had great significance”, said Robbie “Until I floored him by pointing out that he’d lifted that entirely from ’Jeepers Creepers 2’, isn’t there some stuff in that about the man in the hat rising after every 23 years for 23 days?”
“I wish Henry only rose after 23 years for 23 days”, I said, having to raise my voice to be heard over an old Fascist a few tables away, who was ranting on the hoary old subject of how We’re Too Soft On Immigrants In This Country “We’d be rid of him again by now if that was the case!”
“You’ve been quiet, Jason”, said Misty, leaning forward on the table, his sleeves were rolled up and his bare arms were distracting me “I thought you’d be getting all excited about the tunnels today”.
“Oh yes”, I said “The entrance to Hell and all that”.
“I just accept that’s the case that’s why”, said Jason “All I know is I’ve felt spooked today”.
“Yeah, I didn’t like that village”, I said “It’s the sort of place I can imagine going plum out of my head if I had to live there!”
“Did anybody else feel running water when we drove back down the hill?” said Jason.
“Running water?” we all queried at once.
“I just had this feeling like water running over my feet”, said Jason “It was really weird”.
“Whilst we were in the van?” said Robbie “You hadn’t pissed yourself had you?!”
“Yeah, very funny!” said Jason.
“Odd to think how one little girl could have caused such mayhem in that village isn’t it?” I said, referring to Jeannette.
“It wasn’t just her”, said Jason “Strange things have been happening in that place for centuries. You felt it there today, Robbie and Duncan did too when they went. There’s something fuzzy about that place, not right, it’s all off-kilter there”.
When we went back to our rooms at the end of the evening, Misty went to have a bath, and I was filling up a couple of hot water bottles I had brought with me, when Robbie tapped on the door. We had all had a little too much to drink, but it had clearly put him in a melancholy frame of mind.
“I keep thinking about Jeannette”, he said “I keep wondering if I should have done more to help her?”
“What more could you have done?” I said.
“I dunno”, he shrugged, slouching about “She did try and open up to me a couple of times, but … it wasn’t any good really. The damage in her was too deep-rooted, and I just didn’t feel I had the experience needed to help her. I don’t know what I could have done. All I know is that sometimes I really hate Henry”.
“I frequently feel like that!” I said “Try and get some rest. We’ve got a long drive again tomorrow”.
“We will be gone from here by the time it gets dark tomorrow won’t it?” he said.
“Well it doesn’t go dark until 6”, I said “So I should hope we’d be back in Shinglesea by then!”
We left after breakfast the next morning. Misty was in a rotten mood, mostly because of being hungover.
“You didn’t sleep at all well last night”, he said, accusingly, as though this was entirely my fault “You tossed and turned, and at one point you actually kicked me!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!” I said “I didn’t wake up and think ’oh I know I think I’ll give Misty a good kicking, that’ll be a laugh!’ Stop giving me a hard time just because you need some Alka Seltzer!”
Getting out of Higher Marksby was like trying to negotiate an obstacle course. I narrowly avoided getting one of my wing-mirrors taken off by a deranged, mad old pensioner burning it up along the road on her way to church by the looks of things. Jason suggested we do one final drive through Foxley on the way back. As usual there was no one about. The church was all locked up, so presumably no Sunday service today. The only sign of life was a huge black dog sitting in the gateway to the church, its tongue lolling out of its mouth like a big slice of ham.
“It’s the phantom black hound of Foxley!” Jason joked.
“That wouldn’t surprise me at all!” I replied.
Misty barged into ‘Barnacles’ in a foul temper and slammed into the bedroom. I had an instinct that the trip had upset him, that he wished we hadn’t gone, but first things first, I had to put the heating on (the house was like an igloo) and then the kettle. We hadn’t quite reached the knuckle-cracking stage when I finally went to seek him out, but it was close.
“What if we had got stuck there?” he demanded to know.
“How could we have got stuck there?” I said “It was Suffolk, not the dark side of the Moon!”
“This bird flu thing”, he said “We might have got quarantined there!”
“Misty”, I said “It’s the turkeys that are being culled, not humans … not yet anyway!”
We lay back on the bed and I cuddled him in my arms. My mobile rang and I had to dig it out of my pocket. An annoying woman instantly launched into an interrogation, asking if I had upgraded my phone in the past year. Drowsily, I said I had but I couldn’t remember exactly when. “Well more than 3 months ago, 6 months?” she said, with thinly-disguised exasperation. I said probably more than 6 months, but I honestly couldn’t remember (it was hardly a major landmark of the year!!!). She then promptly hung up on me! I’ve never had a cold-caller hang up on me before, (usually it’s the other way round), I was quite chuffed! It occurred to me afterwards that she probably thought I sounded stoned, and I wondered if I had thought of another sure-fire means of getting rid of the bastards. Perhaps next time an arrogant twerp of an energy salesman comes to the front door, I should affect a spaced-out glassy-eyed look, and it would probably exorcise him on the spot!
The week got off to a gloomy start with a visit from the gasman for our annual service. This miserable great lump detests the sight of me almost as much as I detest the sight of him. He seems to have some insane belief that I’m some degenerate sex-mad pervert who can’t wait to trap him in the corner of the bedroom (I can honestly say that I cannot imagine anything less likely to happen!). Before leaving he bitched about our boiler, saying it was getting old (I know how it feels), and that the flue is in the wrong place entirely. As the flue has been in “the wrong place entirely” for the past 20 years, I said I wasn’t going to worry about it too much, which set him off in a huff until next year. I was glad to see the back of him, and his bloody evil karma, and felt like I had to psychically cleanse the house of his presence.
Jason forwarded some pictures to my computer of what appeared to be several UFOs photographed over Islington at the beginning of the month. As you were though, as many people think it’s simply space debris breaking up. Looking at it I couldn’t help but be reminded of a similar photograph taken over the White House in Washington several years ago. It looks very impressive at first glance, until you realise it’s the reflection of the street-lights in the sky! “Never mind”, was Jason’s comment “It’s a fact that UFO sightings have been MASSIVE all over the world since the New Year, what does this tell you?” It tells me that the military are probably trying out new aircraft. I can’t help feeling somehow that the aliens would be more of a comforting thought! Jason also said that some people had seen strange glittering shapes over the Thames last September, which reminded me of accounts I’ve read of people seeing glowing swords in the sky over London just before the great plague outbreak in 1666. I find this more interesting from a psychological aspect than anything else.
Cue more snow, heavy stuff this time. (And lots of very British jokes along the lines of “we’re gonna get 7 inches tomorrow!”). It was so cold that even I dropped my normally misanthropic attitude, and invited the others into the house. The kitchen door was taken off its hinges again, like we had at Christmas-time, and we had some cosy communal meals. Al wasn’t anywhere near as stroppy as he had been on Christmas Day, (mainly because he didn’t have Andy around to savage), and Robbie seemed in a mellow, kindly mood after his tearful opening-up to me in our room at Higher Marksby. Fortunately he seemed to have recovered from his angst over Jeannette, and was being healthily philosophical about it all.
My mobile rang late one afternoon. It was Andy, and he sounded nervous when he heard the voices of the others in the background. I took the phone into the bedroom so that he felt he could talk freely. What he had to tell me was shattering.
“I’m leaving”, he said, wispily “Clearing out. I’ve had enough. Too many strange things have been happening here since that day I was attacked at work”.
“What sort of things?” I said, anxiously.
“Strange noises in the house, thumps, knockings, scraping sounds”, he said.
“Probably the neighbours doing a bit of DIY”, I said, wondering if Andy’s trouble had been acute paranoia all along.
“No, I’ve asked them”, he said “It’s not them. And it’s not just that. I looked outside, about 2 o’clock one morning. I couldn’t sleep, and there was some damn helicopter going round and round overhead. I don’t think they should be allowed to fly at night. And I looked outside. And there was somebody watching the house. A man in a black coat standing near one of the streetlamps …”
“Andy, come here”, I said “If you feel vulnerable, come here, safety in numbers and all that”.
“It’s not safe at your house either”, he said “Xanthe told me at Christmas about the strange men she saw visiting your house one day a few months ago”.
(Damn Xanthe! For such a little woman she’s got a massive gob on her at times!).
“Andy”, I said “We can’t fight these people, whoever they are, if we keep running and hiding from them all the time”.
“I can’t fight them”, he said, and he sounded as if he was having trouble trying not to cry “This has gone on for most of my adult life, Gray, and I’m really sick of it! They’ve wrecked my life, they’ve wrecked my health, and now they’re attacking me, and watching me in the middle of the night. I can’t stand it anymore. Maybe they’ll find me, I expect they will, but it was a mistake to come back here. It was a mistake for Tara too, she should get out as well”.
“From what I know about her past life”, I said “She simply took her troubles with her. She got served with an ASBO where she lived before as well. At least tell me where you’re going. There have been too many people going missing around here”.
“Yes, but I’m going missing voluntarily”, he said, stubbornly “I might send you a postcard or something soon. You must look after yourself, you must, don’t take any unnecessary risks …”
He hung up extremely abruptly. I think it was because he was embarrassed to be crying openly. I felt as though somebody had beaten me up with a sandbag. I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, and felt sick. I heard Misty give a horrified gasp when he saw me from the doorway.
“Misty”, I said, emotionally “Please look after me”.
“Of course I will”, he came and sat down beside me. I quickly told him what had happened.
“Perhaps he thinks if he gets clean away from this area he’ll be alright”, he said “There might be some sense in that. Perhaps Jeannette’s done that, she might have done, for all we know”.
The doorbell rang. I think that when you’re in emotional meltdown that has to be one of the most irritating noises in the world! I went into the living-room. Robbie had answered the door for us. It was some little bit of fluff from ‘Dominic’s Flowers’ delivering a bouquet of roses for Kristy, only she wasn’t in, and could we take them in for her. I was suddenly seized with a monstrous impatience for Kristy. I wanted to beat her round the head with the roses. (Even though she must have been blissfully unaware that a bouquet had been delivered for her, she clearly hadn‘t been expecting them or she‘d have stayed in).
“I’ll put them in the sink for her”, said Xanthe, grandly taking the bouquet as though she was royalty receiving a gift from an obsequious peasant.
“It’s for Valentine’s Day I expect”, said the little bit of fluff, offering his pen for me to sign the chit with (I have no idea if he was actually Dominic, or one of his flowery henchmen) “She must have a secret admirer”.
“Secret admirer my arse!” I said, crossly “I bet you any money you like they’re from Owen bloody Maddock, and he can’t even get Valentine’s Day right, that’s not until Wednesday!”
“Perhaps it’s her birthday”, said Robbie.
“That’s next month”, I said. (Why the fuck, at a time like this, were we going into great in-depth discussions about Kristy????).
It seemed to take an absolute age to get rid of the delivery man. Even when I finally saw him off the veranda he insisted on sitting out in his van, fiddling with some paperwork. I thought then that things had come to a pretty pass when even a flower deliveryman gets me overwrought!!! I knew then that it was important I had to calm down and try and find a bit of space in order to cope with everything, which isn’t easy when there seems to be hordes of people in your face every 5 minutes!
A letter from Andy came in the post the next day. Here’s the main body of it: ‘I’M GOING TO MAIL THIS TO YOU IN TOWN [Fobbington] BEFORE I LEAVE. THERE ARE A COUPLE OF THINGS I DIDN’T FEEL COMFORTABLE SAYING TO YOU ON THE PHONE, WHICH I KNOW MAKES ME SOUND PARANOID, BUT I DON’T THINK I CAN AFFORD TO WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF ME! ONE OF THE REASONS WHY I’M CLEARING OUT IS I HAVE SOME NEW NEIGHBOURS ON ONE SIDE, THEY MOVED IN JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, AND THEY ARE NOT NICE PEOPLE, IN FACT I WOULD GO SO FAR AS TO CALL THEM VERY NASTY. YOU WOULDN’T THINK IT TO LOOK AT THEM. THEY’RE AN OLD COUPLE, PENSIONERS, BUT THEY FREAK ME OUT. THEY STAND AT THE WINDOWS AND STARE FOR HOURS ON END. THEY CONSTANTLY COMPLAIN ABOUT NOISE, EVEN THOUGH I HARDLY MAKE ANY! I DON’T KNOW WHETHER IT’S STRESS OR WHAT, BUT I SEEM TO HAVE HAD REALLY BAD HEADACHES SINCE THEY MOVED IN. I KNOW ALL THIS DOESN’T SOUND VERY MUCH WHEN WRITTEN DOWN LIKE THIS. THEY COULD BE JUST A PAIR OF SAD OLD COVES, SOMEBODY TOLD ME THEY’RE QUITE RELIGIOUS, AND VERY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE DO SEEM TO GO A BIT ODD DON’T THEY? BUT ON TOP OF THE FREAKY STUFF I’VE ALREADY TOLD YOU ABOUT, I’VE BEEN NOTICING THAT THE HOUSE ALWAYS SEEMS VERY DARK ON THEIR SIDE OF IT. A REALLY INTENSE DARKNESS, NOT LIKE ANYTHING I’VE EVER SEEN BEFORE, AND LIGHTBULBS NEAR THEIR PARTITION WALL KEEP EXPLODING ON ME. INDOORS I ALSO FEEL LIKE SOMEBODY’S WATCHING ME ALL THE TIME. I JUST FEEL THAT IF I STAY HERE ANY LONGER I’M GOING TO END UP BEING REALLY ILL AGAIN, AND THAT THOUGHT REALLY SCARES THE CRAP OUT OF ME. I’M GOING TO MISS THIS AREA, I WAS SO HOPIING THAT EVERYTHING WOULD COME RIGHT COMING BACK HERE AGAIN, BUT I CAN SEE NOW THAT THAT WAS JUST ME BEING NAÏVE. MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN VERY KIND TO ME HERE THOUGH. JULIE SPARROW EVEN OFFERED TO COME AND CLEANSE THE HOUSE FOR ME, SHE SAID IT WOULD LESSEN THE DARK AURA OF THE OLD PEOPLE, BUT I DIDN’T SEE THE POINT, I KNEW I WOULD HAVE TO LEAVE. I SHALL MISS YOU AND MISTY. I KEEP HOPING ONE DAY I WILL MEET SOMEONE WHO WILL UNDERSTAND ME TOO, BUT I DON’T SUPPOSE THERE’S ANY HOPE OF THAT. WHO ON EARTH WOULD WANT TO TAKE ME ON, WITH MY HISTORY? I WILL GET IN TOUCH AGAIN SOMETIME. I HOPE THINGS TURN OUT WELL ROUND HERE. IN FACT I HOPE THINGS WILL TURN OUT WELL EVERYWHERE! ALL THE BEST, ANDY’.
Robbie suggested that we go round and sabotage the old couple’s car by putting sugar in it. Jason said this was an old wives’ tale, it would be more effective to put bleach in it, and he should know as he had seen a programme in which they had done this (who said television never taught you anything!). Somehow I didn’t think that either would be the answer. Andy’s running out affected me more than I could have anticipated. It seemed as if the anonymous They were winning.
I was pondering on this on our first vaguely warm day of the year, towards the end of February. I was sitting in the kitchen with the back door slightly open. Misty was outside, tidying up the back garden. Listening to the birds reminded me that Spring was on the way, and inevitably this reminded me of last year, and once again I was disconcerted by how far we had come. Paul came home whilst I was in this reflective mood. He had spent a couple of nights at a friend’s house, which, from the sounds of things, had been one non-stop party. He was raving about it all so much you’d have thought it been an orgy of epic Roman proportions.
“We played Spin The Bottle”, he said “That was something else I can tell you. You should have a party here and play it”.
“I don’t think so”, I said.
“Why not?” he said “It’s fucking brilliant. You never know who you’re gonna get to snog next, that’s the beauty of it!”
“Misty wouldn’t like it”, I said “It’d confuse him. He wouldn’t be able to grasp that it was a game of pretence”.
“Oh … sorry”, he mumbled “I forgot. You see he seems so normal most of the time. Sometimes I hear him talking to himself, but Xanthe talks to herself as well. She has whole conversations with herself!”
“I know”, I smiled.
“She should audition for ’Big Brother’, she’d be a natural for it!” he said.
This idea tickled me so much that (thank God) it lifted me out of my reflective mood.
“Have you heard about Britney Spears shaving off all her hair?” he said, putting the kettle on for me.
“Yes”, I said “It’s being auctioned on eBay for about a million quid. I dread to think what the winning bidder’s going to do with it! Must be like those men who get turned on sniffing used underwear!”
“Apparently it’s because she’d had a wild weekend as well”, he said (something I didn’t think she’d have been playing Spin The Bottle!) “And she just walks into a tattoo parlour, picks up the razor and shaves the whole lot off. I bet she had a helluva shock when she came down afterwards! Bit like that Welsh bloke who cut his knackers off in the pub during the rugby!”
“Well she’s in rehab now anyway”, I said “I just hope she doesn’t go the way of Anna Nicole Smith, that was enough of a shock for me”.
“Yeah, sad weren’t it?” said Paul “I wonder what’s gonna happen to the little baby”.
“She’s had a particularly rough start to this mad old world”, I said “Would you like a KitKat?”
Jason came in soon after with some stupid idea that Magda should hold a ouija board session at the bungalow near Rattlebone Farm. I was horrified.
“But what’s the problem?” said Paul “It’s only a board game”.
“It’s not a problem”, said Jason “You can play it on the Internet these days”.
“That only just goes to show how irresponsible people can be!” I raged. Blimey, what with banning the Spin The Bottle party and now this, I felt as though I could give Mr Barrett Of Wimpole Street a run for his money at this rate!
I was getting depressed by my own self-righteousness, and decided to take a walk up on the sea-wall to cool off. It had been a wet afternoon and now twilight was setting in. Apart from a couple of hardy dog-walkers the beach was empty. Everywhere was quiet, apart from an omnipresent humming noise which seemed to pervade all around. Instinctively I looked up for aeroplanes, but it didn’t sound like that. I felt my skin prickle with it. The spell was eventually broken by two young girls giggling hysterically as they walked across the camp-site nearby.
I climbed down from the sea-wall, feeling spooked. Al called me into his wagon when I reached the front garden of ’Barnacles’.
“Glad you vetoed the ouija board idea”, he said “Magda wasn’t happy about it either”.
“I’ve rarely heard of anything good to come out of people messing around with that thing”, I said.
“I blame that ’Most Haunted’ series”, said Al “Jason watches that religiously, and they’re always using the ouija. Anyway, we’ve got enough weird shit happening in this area, without encouraging it! Have you heard about that young woman turning up?”
“Come again?” I said.
“I read it on the local news Teletext”, said Al “A young woman turned up at the cop-shop in Fobbington with a broken wrist. Said she had found herself wandering along the road from Darklight Cove, and had no memory of how she had got there”.
“Date rape drug?” I said “It might account for the broken wrist as well”.
“That was my first thought as well”, said Al “But in this area I’m not so sure. There are other factors, even darker than that, at work here”.
“Well at least she’s turned up”, I sighed “There’s still no sign of Jeannette.”.
“Trying to understand everything that’s going on around here is impossible”, said Al “Let alone trying to combat it. Like trying to knit fog!!”
“For the first time I’m wondering if it might be an idea to get away from here for a while”, I said “Go and rent somewhere completely different for a time. Just to let the dust settle here a bit”.
“How would Misty feel about that?” said Al.
“He’ll go where I go”, I said. I knew this must sound unspeakably arrogant, but it was simply a fact. If I was to announce that we were going to go and trek across the Sahara, Misty would be sitting out on the veranda with his rucksack on his knees, waiting for us to get started. That’s simply the way things are.
“You’re very lucky to have a partner as devoted as him”, said Al “It certainly doesn’t happen to everybody”.
“I know”, I said “I never take him for granted, I promise you that”.
“I wonder when they’re going to come and take away the wreckage of Henry’s old house”, said Al “It looks a complete eyesore as it is”.
“Hopefully before Easter”, I said “When the Season starts in earnest”.
Somehow I wasn’t banking on it though! I went into ‘Barnacles’ via the back door, and found Magda, stripped down to her bra and pants (matching white set), washing herself at the kitchen sink.
“Oh I hope you don’t mind”, she said “Only our plumbing seems to be knackered. Misty said it was alright”.
“Of course it’s alright”, I said “But why don’t you use the bathroom? It’d be more comfortable”.
“It’s only a very quick wash”, she said “We’re off out to ‘The Ship’”.
I pulled down the blind at the window, and the one over the glass in the back door.
“If Al sees you like that”, I explained “It’d probably finish him off altogether, let alone what it would do to Robbie!”
“Sorry”, she laughed “That’s what comes of spending nearly all my life in female-dominated environments! The sight of a woman in her underwear is nothing special”.
“I think they might beg to differ on that one!” I said.
I went through into the living-room just as Jason was coming in the front door, so I carefully shut the kitchen door, (even though Jason probably wouldn’t notice if the entire country was walking around in its underwear, not unless there was a portal to Hell in the immediate vicinity anyway!). He wanted to show me some photographs he had taken of Fobbington churchyard by night. I said he was quite mad to be skulking around that place on a cold, dark February night, but he was in one of his usual excitable states.
“You’ve got to see what I’ve got on these”, he said, laying out the photographs on the coffee table.
I must admit the first one I saw did startle me, and I cried out “blimey, I think you’ve got something here!” It showed a gaunt, red-eyed creature standing next to one of the headstones.
“No, that’s my mate, Dave”, he said “The camera flash must have caught his eyes. He’s in Julie Sparrow’s paranormal circle”.
“Figures”, said I “Well what am I supposed to be looking at then?”
“The orbs”, he said, in hushed tones.
“Oh … right”, I said, finding it hard as usual to work up any enthusiasm whatsoever for bloody orbs.
“I know I know”, he said “You’re an orb-basher. But look - masses of them”.
Certainly in some of the pictures the orbs looked like an electrical snowstorm was in progress.
“That shows the amount of activity that was in that place”, he said.
“A combination of dust, the flash from your camera, and rain”, I said, unimpressed.
“It wasn’t raining that night”, he said, stubbornly “I’ve heard some gossip as well. Tara Mitchell’s been sectioned”.
“Is this true?” I said. Although this was news I had been expecting for months, it still took me by surprise.
“Yeah, ’fraid so”, he said “One of the neighbours hadn’t seen her around for a while, and went to see how she was. Which was pretty good of them, considering the trouble she’s given! They found her in the kitchen. I don’t know all the details. Just the vibe is that she was acting really out of it, and the place was in a right state, she clearly hadn’t been looking after herself. Said to be in an extreme manic state. So the van had to be sent for”.
“Poor old Tara”, I said, remembering what Andy had told us about the disastrous demon-raising evening all those years ago. Terry’s dead, Andy’s disappeared, and now Tara’s been sectioned. It’s very hard to remain completely sceptical in the light of all this. If it was all power of suggestion in this case, then it was a bloody effective one.