The Key to Midnight

posthypnotic suggestion that caused this attack when I probed too deeply, evidently with the hope your seizure would terminate this interrogation.'
        Joanna scowled. 'That's the same thing that caused my claustrophobia.'
        'Precisely,' Inamura said. 'And now that you're aware of it, you won't allow it to happen again.'
        'I hate them,' she said bitterly.
        'Will you allow it to happen again, Joanna?'
        'No:
        'Good,' Inamura said.
        Even in the dimly lighted room, Joanna looked so pale that Alex said, 'Maybe we shouldn't continue with this.'
        'It's perfectly safe,' the doctor said.
        'I'm not so sure.'
        Inamura said, 'Joanna, are you still in the room, that special room, the place that reeks of ammonia?'
        'Ammonia… alcohol… other things,' she said. 'Sickening. It's so strong I can smell it and taste it.'
        'You are unclothed-'
        '-naked-'
        '-and strapped to the bed.'
        'The straps are too tight. I can't move. Can't get up. I've got to get up and out of here.'
        'Relax,' Inamura said. 'Easy. Easy.'
        Alex watched her anxiously.
        'Be calm,' Inamura said. 'You will remember all of it, but you will do so quietly. You will be calm and relaxed, and you will not be afraid.'
        'At least the room's warm,' she said.
        'That's the spirit. Now, I want you to look around and tell me what you see.'
        'Not much.'
        'Is it a large place?' 'No. Small.'
        'Any furniture other than the bed?'
        She didn't reply. He repeated the question, and she said, 'I don't know if you'd call it furniture.'
        'All right. But what is it? Can you describe what's in the room with you?'
        'Beside my bed… it's… I guess it's one of those cardiac monitors… you know… like in an intensive-care ward or hospital operating theater.'
        'An electrocardiograph.'
        'Yes. And beside it… maybe… a brainwave machine.'
        'An electroencephalograph. Are you in a hospital?'
        'No. I don't think so.'
        'Are you hooked up to the machines now?'
        'Sometimes. Not now. No beeping. No wiggly lines of light. Machines are… shut off.'
        'Is there anything else in the room?'
        'A chair. And a cabinet… with a glass door.'
        'What's in the cabinet, Joanna?'
        'Lots of small bottles… vials… ampules…'
        'Drugs?'
        'Yes. And hypodermic syringes wrapped in plastic.'
        'Are those drugs used on you?'
        'Yes. I hate…' Her hands closed into fists, opened, closed. 'I hate…'
        'Go on.'
        'I hate the needle.' She twitched at the word 'needle.'
        'What else do you see?'
        'Nothing.'
        'Does the room have a window?'
        'Yes. One.'
        'Good. Does it have a blind or drapes?'
        'A blind.'
        'Is the blind open or shut?'
        'Open.'
        'What do you see through the window, Joanna?'
        She was silent again.
        'What do you see through the window?'
        Her voice suddenly changed. It was so hard, flat, and cold that it might have been the voice of an altogether different person. 'Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.'
        Omi Inamura gazed at her, captured by a silence of his own. At last he repeated the question. 'What do you see beyond the window?'
        She chanted - not woodenly but with a strange, cold anger. 'Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.'
        'You are relaxed and calm. You are not tense or apprehensive. You are completely safe, utterly relaxed, calm, in a deep and natural sleep.'
        'Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.'
        Alex put one hand to the nape of his neck where a chill crept across his skin.
        Inamura said, 'What do you mean by that, Joanna?'
        She was rigid in her reclining chair. Her hands were fisted against her abdomen. 'Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.'
        A dry scratching noise rose from the shadows across the room. Freud was scraping his talons against his wooden perch.
        'Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun,' Joanna repeated.
        'Very well,' Inamura said. 'Forget about the window for the time being. Let's talk about the people who came to see you when you were kept in that room. Were there many of them?'
        Shaking with what seemed to be anger but which Alex now