Mindgame by Anthony Horowitz Page B

Keep away from me!
    FARQUHAR: I didn’t mean to kill her. But then of course, if I were responsible for my actions, I wouldn’t be here, would I?
    STYLER: Easterman…
    FARQUHAR: Yes.
    STYLER: Listen to me.
    FARQUHAR: I’m all ears.
    STYLER: ( Getting up .) Take this off. Please. Take off this strait-jacket and let me go. I promise you, I won’t tell anyone. Nobody needs to know I was ever here. Let me go and I’ll go home and leave you to whatever it is you want to do. I promise.
    FARQUHAR: You want me to let you go?
    STYLER: Please.
    FARQUHAR: And you won’t tell anyone?
    STYLER: I promise.
    FARQUHAR: Do you think I’m mad? I mean, do you think I’m crazy? I let you go and you really just forget the whole thing happened?
    STYLER: Yes!
    FARQUHAR: No.
    STYLER: Then what are you going to do with me?
    FARQUHAR: What am I going to do with you? ( Pause .) It’s bizarre, isn’t it. When I first saw you here in this room, I had no idea who you were. You see, it was three weeks ago that we took over Fairfields. Did she tell you…Dr Ennis?
    STYLER: She told me, yes.
    FARQUHAR: It started right here in this office…just the three of us, Dr Ennis, Dr Farquhar and me. In psychodrama. You have no idea how much I used to dread those bloody sessions. The warm-up. The action. The journey through the spiral. It was so embarrassing! I mean, they wanted emotions. It all had to be out there. ‘Why did you kill your father?’ ( Another voice .) ‘My God! I didn’t know I had killed my father!’ ( Third voice .) ‘You did kill him and I should know because I am your father.’ The whole thing was absurd — and since we’ve been talking about Laing I should say I use the word entirely in the non-existential sense. I can’t help thinking that the world of psychiatry will be better off without them Doctors Ennis and Farquhar. What they were trying to do here was so obviously idiotic that only the most highly qualified and respected psychiatrists would be unable to see it.
    STYLER: Was that why you killed them?
    FARQUHAR: I killed them because the opportunity presented itself. We massacred the entire staff apart from one or two whom we kept for recreational purposes. I hope you noticed the ‘whom’ by the way. As my potentialbiographer I’d like you to know that I’m a stickler for good grammar. Who and whom…you know the difference?
    STYLER: Yes. Yes, of course.
    FARQUHAR: Well, that’s reassuring. Anyway, we butchered the staff, quite literally in one or two cases I’m afraid. ( Gesturing at the skeleton .)
    STYLER: Oh God. I’m going to be sick again…
    FARQUHAR: Why don’t you sit down?
    STYLER: No!
    FARQUHAR: You’ll feel better sitting down.
    STYLER: No…
    FARQUHAR: ( A scream .) Sit down!
    STYLER is shaken out of his nausea. He sits down. FARQUHAR continues his explanation as though nothing has happened.
    Well, as soon as things had quietened down, I took over the running of Fairfields, working out of Dr Farquhar’s office. My immediate concern was to make sure that what had happened here remained, at least for as long as possible, our own little secret…and that proved to be somewhat easier than I had thought. We are, after all, in a very secluded corner of Suffolk, if indeed that most ill-defined of English counties can be said to have corners.
    STYLER: I should never have come.
    FARQUHAR: From the moment I saw you, all I wanted to do was to get you to leave. I tried to make you go, but you wouldn’t listen.
    STYLER: I want to go now.
    FARQUHAR: Of course you want to go now. But now I’m actually quite glad you’ve stayed. And you know what it was that changed my mind? ( Pause .) Your book.
    STYLER: Why?
    FARQUHAR: Call it vanity, if you like. The vanity of being published. The fact that you wanted to write about me. Not Borson. Or Morgenstein or any of the rest of them. Me! I was