7th May
Leadbetter lay in a coma.
‘Are you relatives of the Reverend Leadbetter?’ asked the nurse who led Helen, Etienne and me to his private room.
I paused before replying, pondering upon my exact relationship to the reverend. He was the mentally unstable vicar of my local church, and he was an ex-member of a homicidal religious cult that was trying to gain control of American nuclear weapons. I would have had little involvement with him had he not developed the delusion that I had supernatural powers and that he should be my most faithful disciple – proving his loyalty by seeking the leader of said cult. We now wanted to talk to him on the subject of his kidnapping of two Anglican bishops; his theft and concealment of an American, black project spacecraft from Area 51 in Nevada, and his shooting dead of the local parish vicar in Great Melford – all of which focussed upon our ultimate objective of saving the Earth from being destroyed by an asteroid in mid-September. ‘Just friends,’ I replied, by way of a very abridged summary.
‘Has he said anything?’ said Etienne to the nurse as we sat down beside Leadbetter’s bedside.
‘He’s mildly sedated at the moment,’ she replied, ‘and he’s never fully revived from the coma, but initially, he kept repeating two things.’
‘What were they?’ I asked.
‘The first was “Great Lord Morrison”,’ the nurse replied, ‘and the other was “war”. He kept saying the word “war”, over and over again.’
‘Can we spend some time alone with Reverend Leadbetter?’ said Etienne to the nurse.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Call me if you notice any change.’
When the nurse had left, I moved closer to Leadbetter and whispered into his ear: ‘Hello, Christian,’ I said, ‘it’s Swan Morrison.’
Leadbetter lay totally still for some moments then suddenly both his eyes opened wide.
He looked at Helen, then at Etienne, and then at me.
‘Hello, Christian,’ I repeated.
Leadbetter looked again at each of us. ‘Where am I,’ he said, ‘who are you … and, more to the point, who am I?’