3rd June
‘Beta and Gamma wouldn’t be able to cope with each other if they met,’ said Alpha.
Etienne sat across the table from Leadbetter, wondering how best to continue their discussion.
Etienne had already concluded that Leadbetter’s psychological traumas had caused two widely differing personalities to emerge within the vicar’s mind.
The first was that of a local vicar with very simplistic and fundamentalist religious views. These views were associated with a number of associated neuroses – particularly in relation to sex. Despite that, however, this version of Leadbetter was a basically decent individual, trying to do his best.
A second personality had arisen, however, forged by events since the meteorite had hit Waterford. This character seemed to have been loosely modelled on James Bond: he was resolute in pursuing his objectives, and if violence, threats, kidnapping or theft were required along the way, then such behaviour gave him little problem.
Leadbetter’s selective amnesia had confirmed for Etienne that the vicar could not internally reconcile these two personalities.
When Etienne had last spoken to Leadbetter, the second personality had been at the forefront, but Etienne knew that this kind of partial dissociation of personalities could not last – the old Christian Leadbetter would, at some subconscious level, be struggling to re-emerge.
Within the last twenty-four hours, a new resolution to Leadbetter’s psychological conflicts had appeared in the form of a full blown dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personality.
Gamma Leadbetter was the Christian Leadbetter of old; Beta Leadbetter was the action hero, and conveniently, an Alpha Leadbetter had also emerged.
Alpha was a distinct third personality who knew the other two and understood the problems which might result from them meeting.
It was Alpha who had chosen the Greek alphabetical naming of the Leadbetter trio. He was also able to summon Beta and Gamma at will, so Alpha provided a means to access all that the Leadbetters knew.
‘Can I speak to Beta, please?’ asked Etienne.
‘Hello, Etienne,’ said Beta.
‘Hello, Christian,’ said Etienne. ‘Can you tell me what happened to Bishop Gerald Hunter?’
‘I remember now,’ said Beta with an expression of surprise and relief. ‘Before now, I could remember some things I’d done but not others. Now I think I can remember …’ He paused, seemingly deep in thought. ‘What happened before I escaped from the psychiatric unit in Southampton?’ Beta digressed, forgetting Etienne’s original question.
That hospital stay seemed to Etienne to represent a natural watershed between Leadbetter’s Gamma and Beta identities. Now that his mind had fully formed the two dissociated personalities, Etienne hoped that there would not be gaps in the memories of either – particularly that of Beta. The question about Hunter seemed to Etienne to be an initial test of that hypothesis. ‘What can you remember about Hunter?’ Etienne repeated.
‘I left him in a bunker that my father built near my home village,’ Beta replied.